Magia: A New Hope

by Pentalithia

A Madoka / Magia Record fan suddenly wakes up in the world of magical girls, as a side character. Features Ashley Taylor. Note: In case it's not obvious, you should expect massive spoilers here for nearly everything in the franchise.

99. Walpurgis the Eighth

It was when I was fourteen years old that a mysterious white fox-like creature appeared before me, calling itself Kyuubey. It offered me a chance to make one wish, in exchange for a lifetime of fighting magical creatures known as witches. I was naïve back then, so I took the offer without much thought on the matter.

However, once I'd made my wish – I don't even remember what it was anymore – something went wrong. When Kyuubey attempted to fulfill my wish, the operation failed. Apparently, I was an anomaly and did not have a soul, so I could not become a magical girl.

Little did I know that it failed, not because I had no soul, but because I was already a magical girl and had been since birth. The apparent birthmark on my fingernail, a beige circle, was the proof. But it would be another ten years before the truth of my strange existence finally came to my attention.

Thus my brief experience with Kyuubey slowly faded from my mind, soon to be forgotten as I began to focus on high school entrance exams.

~Excerpt from "Twins of Eternity: A Fantastical Autobiography"~
~by Kiriha Kosane~

---

As told by Hijiri Kanna… a few hours before the pre-battle meeting…

Hijiri had chosen to skip school on that day, spending most of the day with Kazumi and Michika, who had not yet been enrolled. The three of them eventually caught a train before school hours ended, so that they could arrive in Kamihama just as the students there were getting out of school. Nico, who was also skipping school, joined them at the train station.

"So, the others are all coming afterwards, right?" Michika said.

"That's right," Hijiri said.

"I still can't get over the fact that you're basically twins," Michika said.

"Aha, it's strange, isn't it?" Kazumi said.

"We're not twins," Nico said. "I wish you'd stop referring to us as such."

"Still, you can't deny that we have the same genetic makeup," Hijiri said. "But you're right, calling us clones would be more accurate, wouldn't it?"

"I suppose," Michika said.

"By the way," Kazumi said, "aren't you going to tell us what your wish was, Michika-chan?"

Michika shook her head. "I'm sorry."

"Well, if you want to keep it private, that's up to you," Hijiri said. "After all, she kept hers private, so who am I to complain?"

She jerked her thumb at Nico, who sighed in response.

"Well, I tried to," she said. "But whatever."

"By the way, is there any particular reason we're not bringing Juubey along?" Kazumi asked.

"Ah, did I not tell you, Kazumi?" Nico said. "Juubey's in the lab for servicing right now. He had some… issues in his programming, so I was trying to isolate the cause."

"Issues, you say," Hijiri said. "Like occasionally turning evil for no apparent reason?"

"Well… that's not how I would describe it," Nico said. "But I can see the connection."

"I do wonder if Juubey would be okay inside Kamihama's barrier though," Hijiri said. "I guess it's not connected to the collective, so it should be alright… but it hasn't been put to the test yet, right?"

"That's true," Nico said.

"If we'd brought him along when we were investigating the disappearance of the witches, I suppose we'd already have the answer to that," Hijiri said. "Though there wasn't any reason to do so…"

"Oh yeah, we should go to Walnut's while we're here," Kazumi said. "Or Banbanzai. They're both pretty good! And I need to pay back Manaka-chan after all…"

"I can't believe you tried to work off your meal," Hijiri said. "You should've known she'd turn you down!"

"Yeah, but I just didn't like the thought of owing her!" Kazumi said. "But I ended up owing her anyway, so it was all for nothing…"

"Just checking, but… you do have your purse today, right?" Hijiri said.

Kazumi held it up, then rummaged through and extracted her wallet and showed that off too.

"See? It's right here!" she said.

"Alright," Hijiri said. "Then I guess paying her back is possible."

"Maybe I'll stop by Walnut's after the battle then," Kazumi said. "I'm sure she'll be surprised to see me."

They all piled off the train at Chuo Station and transferred to a different train heading to Mizuna, at which point Hijiri gave Kazumi directions to the dojo while the rest of them headed to the temple. When they arrived, they found Ryoko already there, talking to the head priest. She finished up her conversation and turned to them.

"Yo!" Ryoko said. "You're the ones joining us for this event, right?"

"Yes, I'm Hijiri Kanna, one of the organizers. These are—"

"I can introduce myself," Nico interrupted. "I'm Kanna Nico, of the Pleiades Saints."

"And I'm Subaru Michika, of the same!"

"Nice to meet you," Ryoko said. "You're almost the first to arrive."

"Oh, someone got here before us?" Hijiri said.

"Well, come in and see," Ryoko said.

She ushered them into the temple, where they found four other magical girls already waiting, including Oriko.

"Good afternoon," Oriko said. "I am Mikuni Oriko."

"Ah, so you're the other one in charge," Hijiri said. "So we're both here already… I guess these are your team members?"

"Yes, that is correct," Oriko said.

"I'm Asako Koito!" the younger girl piped up. "This is my big sister, Komaki."

"I'm Kure Kirika," the remaining girl said.

"Oh yeah, do you know how many people we're expecting?" Ryoko asked.

"Quite a few, I believe," Oriko replied. "Only Miss Taylor and possibly Miss Hijiri have the full list, but from memory, I believe we're expecting somewhere between forty and fifty magical girls."

"That sounds about right, yeah," Hijiri said. "I have the full list on my phone."

"Oh wow, that's a lot," Ryoko said.

"It really is incredible!" Michika said. "That girl has been busy, hasn't she?"

"I can't believe she managed to gather so many together," Koito mused. "Is it literally every magical girl in Shinriku Prefecture?"

"I believe she mentioned that she wasn't able to find time to recruit from Futatsugi or Kanitomi, nor from any of the smaller towns and villages that dot the countryside and coastline," Oriko said. "Furthermore, that count excludes the magical girls of Kamihama, who are involved with this plan but playing a different role. I believe there are almost as many magical girls just in Kamihama alone, so those who join us here will be fewer than half of all the magical girls on the island."

At that moment, several familiar girls entered – Hitomi Lina's team, and the Kimiko sisters. Hijiri whipped out the list on her phone and started marking off everyone who was already present. Then the Kimiko sisters spotted her and came over to greet her.

"Kanna-chi, hello!" Anzu said. "I can't thank you enough for bringing onee-san back…"

The elder sister nodded. "I don't entirely understand what you did, but… I feel even better than before," she said. "Thank you very much."

"It's not like I did it out of charity," Hijiri said. "Miss Chinatsu, you could say that you were an experiment to determine if this method of resurrection is even viable for a magical girl. After all… Kazumi-chan and Michika-chan are examples of it going wrong, so I couldn't be certain it would work even with the alterations Pernelle and I made to the process."

"So what you're saying is that by helping me, you've learned what you need to help other girls in similar situations?" Chinatsu said.

"Yes, but I'm not sure if I'll do it for free again," Hijiri said. "This time the reward was the information, but…"

"You're going to charge money?" Chinatsu asked.

"Not necessarily money," Hijiri said. "I haven't thought it through in much detail yet, and in any case, it doesn't really apply to you… unless you end up losing your body again."

"Well, I certainly don't plan to do that!" Chinatsu said.

"Are you already used to your new body?" Hijiri asked.

"Well, I'm not sure," Chinatsu said. "I seem to be applying a bit too much strength when I'm not very careful… but being able to heal faster is really helpful when I get injured by a witch."

"Well, be sure to talk to me or Pernelle if you run into any issues," Hijiri said.

"Yes, of course," Chinatsu said.

Then two girls entered, one familiar, one unfamiliar. They looked around, and Hijiri disengaged from the Kimiko sisters to go greet them.

"Welcome," she said. "You're here to fight Walpurgisnacht, right?"

"Well, I don't really like the idea of fighting Walpurgisnacht," the first girl said. "Last time I tried that, she floored me in a single shot."

"Huh?" Hijiri said. "What do you mean, last time?"

"I think it was about thirty loops ago," the girl said.

"Huh… you were aware of that?" Hijiri said.

"Yes… it's one of the quirks of my magic," she replied. "I'm Aki Mabayu, by the way… it was Ashley Taylor who asked me to come, but she doesn't seem to be here?"

"She's elsewhere," Hijiri said. "I expect she'll show up sometime after the battle gets going though."

"Hmm," Mabayu said. "So she asked me to come, and track down this girl with me to boot, yet she's not even here to greet me?"

"There's just a lot of things to do," Hijiri said. "Anyway…"

She marked off the two of them on her list, then looked at the girl with Mabayu, who blinked back at her.

"You are Satomi Nayuta, right?" Hijiri said.

"Yes, you are… Kanna Nico, if I recall correctly?" Nayuta said.

"You do recall correctly, but you're also wrong," Hijiri said. "Kanna Nico is… something like a clone of me, and I was posing as her when we met last time. My actual name is Hijiri Kanna. The real Kanna Nico is here too though, right over there."

Hijiri indicated where Nico was sitting, leaning up against the wall at the far side of the room.

"Ah, it is a pleasure to meet you again, Miss Hijiri," Nayuta said.

At that moment, Oriko stepped up and joined the conversation.

"I am Mikuni Oriko," she said. "The pleasure is mine."

"Ah, you're the oracle who used to warn about Walpurgisnacht," Mabayu said. "I remember Kyuubey passing your warning on to me in… I think it was the third loop…?"

"Ah… I know nothing about that," Oriko said. "But I suppose it is possible that I might have done something like that, were the circumstances different. More importantly…"

She turned to Nayuta.

"Miss Hijiri said you are called Miss Satomi, correct?"

"Ah, yes, that's right," Nayuta said.

"This might be a long shot, but… do you have any relation to Satomi Touka?" Oriko asked.

"W-what!?" Nayuta gasped. "Are you a friend of Touka's!?"

"No… I do not think I could call myself a friend," Oriko said. "After all, with this operation we are opposing the organization that she built up…"

"Huh?" Nayuta said. "So that means Touka… is the enemy!? That's almost worse though!"

"If I may ask… what is your relationship with her?" Oriko asked.

"Our fathers are brothers," Nayuta said. "She's my bratty little cousin who I just can't get along with… but even so, I just can't think of her as an enemy…"

"Well… the people here are gathering to fight Walpurgisnacht, not Miss Touka," Oriko said. "So I don't think you should worry yourself over that."

"Okay," Nayuta said. "Miss Aki did say something about a terrible witch, but… it was Walpurgisnacht? That goes well above my expectations…"

"Huh? I thought I already mentioned the name to you," Mabayu said. "Didn't I?"

"I don't remember hearing it," Nayuta said. "But there might have been a moment when I wasn't paying attention… my apologies if that is the case…"

As they wandered away, arguing about whether or not Mabayu had mentioned the witch's identity, Liliane's team stepped in – the Pierrot twins, Kaori Sachie, Takara Shiori, Claire, and the Hayashi sisters. They greeted Hijiri warmly, then moved further into the room to introduce themselves to the others present. Hijiri went through her list to mark them all off. A few minutes later, the rest of the girls from Mitakihara arrived – Kohaku Koharu, Masuyo Mari, Naomi Noriko, and Yuzuki Miu. The Mari pair were still in a single body. Hijiri marked them all off on her list as well.

"Good afternoon," Koharu said. "Are you the person in charge here?"

"It's me and Miss Mikuni," Hijiri said. "I'm Hijiri Kanna, nice to meet you."

"The name's Kohaku Koharu. I hear you've already met the others…?"

"Yes, that's correct," Hijiri said. "Misses Masuyo, I see you're still sharing a body?"

"Yes… we have been talking about what to do about the situation," Mari said. "Even the matter of names… we can't go by the same name forever, right? I was actually thinking of talking to you after this about the question of separating us… I don't mind terribly sharing a body with onee-san, but I think she'd like to be a bit more independent again?"

"Well… you know where I am if you decide to," Hijiri said.

"Yes, of course," Mari said.

"It's kind of nostalgic being back in Kamihama," Miu said. "I almost want to stop by my parents' home, but… I'm sure I wouldn't be welcome, so I won't."

"Come to think of it, your little sister was called Hotori, right?" Hijiri said.

"Ah, yes… what about it?" Miu said.

"She's part of this too," Hijiri said. "So you might actually run into her on the battlefield."

Miu blinked. "Huh? Hotori-chan's a magical girl!? W-what about Rion-chan then?"

"I don't know of any Rion involved in this," Hijiri said. "From what Miss Taylor said, I don't think she's a magical girl."

"Well… still, this is a shock," Miu said. "I never thought Hotori-chan would become a magical girl too…"

Several girls not in uniform entered around then, and given that they all looked like foreigners, Hijiri figured they were probably Ashley's friends. Therefore, she stepped over to them and greeted them in English.

"Hello, welcome!" she said.

"Ah… is this the right place?" the darker-skinned girl asked in the same language. "Ashley's directions led here but it seemed like an odd choice of meeting place…"

"No, you've got the right place," Hijiri said. "We happened to have someone related to the temple who pulled some strings for us so we could use it for this."

"Ah, okay," the girl said. "I'm Sarra Basset. Your English is even better than Inui's…"

"That's because I lived in the US for a few years when I was younger," Hijiri said.

"So that explains it!" the red-haired girl said. "I'm Chevonne O'Keefe. These here are Janice Hatheway, Alice Chandler, and um…"

The girl with pink hair took over. "I am Adèle François, and this is my younger sister, Gisèle. Enchanted to meet you."

"Yes, it's nice to meet you too," Hijiri said.

She took a moment to mark the six of them off on her list.

"It's amazing how many people Ashley gathered," Janice said. "She did mention it, but seeing it in person makes much more of an impact…"

"And these are only the people from out of town, right?" Chevonne said. "So we'll have over twice as many once the two groups join up?"

"That's the expectation, yes," Hijiri said. "Maybe even four times or more. But about half of those were gathered by someone else."

"W-wow, potentially more than two hundred!?" Chevonne gasped. "That's really incredible…"

The girls already present started to settle down, chatting amongst themselves, and it was quite awhile before anyone else arrived. The girls from Hohzuki arrived about twenty minutes after Ashley's friends from abroad, and Matsuri came over to introduce Hijiri to the rest of her friends, after which Hijiri marked them off on her list. Everyone else from Asunaro stepped in just a few minutes after them, which meant the other five of the Pleiades Saints, plus Yuuri, Airi, Remi, Moe, and Fumiko. Sumire of course had joined the Wings of the Magius and thus was not included, so that covered every magical girl currently active in Asunaro except for the Souju twins – they had also decided to stay home, saying it was none of their business what happens to Kamihama. In any case, Hijiri marked off all the Asunaro girls as well.

That left ten more people to arrive, according to the list Ashley had sent her. She'd been diligent about recording each person's arrival, so she was confident that the count of ten was correct. However, just as she was thinking that, she received an email from Ashley saying that three of the expected people had been unexpectedly diverted to the dojo instead, which meant they were only waiting for seven people.

It was probably about five or so minutes after she got the email that the next three people entered. Hijiri hurried over to greet them.

"Welcome," she said. "You're here for the Walpurgisnacht attack, right?"

"Ah, yes!" the black-haired girl said. "I'm Tsukimachi Kotone."

"I'm Matsuyama Mayumi," the redhead said.

The last girl, who had sky-blue hair, spoke up last of all.

"My name is Ko— I mean, Hoshiko."

Hijiri nodded, marking the three of them off on her list.

"We came all the way from Matsumiya," Kotone said. "I hope we aren't late…?"

"No, you're not late," Hijiri said. "We still have some time. You're not even the last to arrive –we're still expecting four more people."

"Oh, that's a relief," Kotone said. "We weren't sure if we'd make it in time, given that it was right after school and Matsumiya is pretty far from Kamihama… though we were coming here anyway for different reasons, so it wouldn't've been a total waste to miss it."

"What reasons, if I may ask?"

"Ah, we're taking a trip to Tokyo for Golden Week," Kotone said.

"Ah, nice," Hijiri said. "Well, anyway, come in and settle down. I think it shouldn't be too much longer now."

"Alright," Kotone said.

A bit later, probably about five or ten minutes more, the last four people finally stepped in, and Hijiri once again took the time to greet them.

"Good afternoon," she said. "You must be the ones from Yukuni…?"

"Yes, that's us!" the lightest-haired girl said. "I'm Alexandra Cruise."

"Um, I'm Yume Ulala," the purple-haired girl said.

"I am Himuro Lavi."

"Miura Asahi, pleased to meetcha!"

"Perfect," Hijiri said. "You're the last ones to arrive. I think it should be…"

She quickly marked them off and then checked the time on her phone.

"…roughly half an hour before things get started around here."

"At least we're not late," Asahi said.

"By the way, what was the weather like outside?" Hijiri asked.

"Well… it was a bit overcast, but not too bad," Ulala said.

"Rain is coming, for sure," Asahi said. "But the weather report didn't mention it…"

"I see," Hijiri said. "You didn't notice anything else odd on your way here, did you?"

"We sensed several witches," Lavi said. "But I suppose that is not unusual for Kamihama…?"

"So it may even be a bit more than half an hour," Hijiri mused, nodding in response to the question. "Alright… come in and settle down. Now that everyone's here, we'll address everyone."

Hijiri located Oriko and headed over to join her.

"If you are coming here, does that mean everyone has arrived?" Oriko asked.

"Yes, that's right," Hijiri said.

"Then I suppose we should begin the explanations," Oriko said. "Is it okay if I do most of the talking?"

"That's fine with me," Hijiri said. "And I'll translate for Ashley's foreign friends."

So the two of them headed over to one side of the room that had a raised dais, and Oriko raised her voice to get everyone's attention.

"Excuse me, may I have your attention please!"

She waited a minute or so while the conversations died down and everyone turned to face her.

"Most of you probably do not know me," Oriko said. "Most of you were called here by Ashley Taylor, but she is unfortunately unable to make it to the meeting today, as she is setting things up elsewhere."

Hijiri did her best to repeat Oriko's words in English, and Oriko helped out by pausing now and then to give Hijiri a chance to finish talking.

"Therefore, Miss Taylor asked the two of us to take charge here until she can arrive," Oriko continued. "I am Mikuni Oriko, and this is Hijiri Kanna. You all know why we are here. The witch Walpurgisnacht is a legend among magical girls, a terrible witch that evades detection and strikes at will against coastal and inland cities alike at her whim, bringing destruction and devastation wherever she goes. Thanks to my oracle, we know that the witch will be targeting Kamihama next. That is why Miss Taylor asked everyone to come here today – to once and for all rid the world of an ancient witch that has caused disaster for eons untold."

There was a scattered round of applause, even as Hijiri finished the translation. It was a little difficult to convey the poetic nature of her words, but Hijiri did the best she could on the spot. Oriko waited for both the translation and the applause to be finished before continuing.

"The plan is deceptively simple," Oriko said. "Walpurgisnacht will most likely be detected within the hour. Around then, we will start to encounter her carnival familiars at the waterfront in Minaminagi Ward. Due to… unique circumstances here in Kamihama, the appearance of those familiars is expected to lure out the familiars of a different elusive witch here in Kamihama, which look like penguins. When that happens, we shall head out in small teams to exterminate both types of familiars, which will appear outside in the city without a labyrinth to hide in. Eventually, once Walpurgisnacht makes landfall, we shall reconvene and face her together."

Silence fell for a few moments, broken only by Hijiri's voice finishing the translation.

"That really is deceptively simple," Kotone said.

"But simple is good," Mayumi said. "I like it."

"Excuse me! How will we know where the familiars have appeared?" Nayuta asked.

"I am glad you asked," Oriko said. "One of our number, a Miss Misono Karin, is already out there keeping a watch for them. She will let us know when and where she finds them. If everything goes to plan, another girl named Hozumi Shizuku will be able to help us reach the target location quickly and efficiently."

"Huh, so you have Shizuku on your side?" Mabayu said. "How much did you have to pay her to get her to agree to that?"

"I am not privy to the information that would be required to answer your question," Oriko said. "My apologies. You should ask Miss Hozumi herself, or Miss Taylor. In addition to familiars, Miss Misono will notify us if an exceptionally powerful witch appears in the town, and if that happens, we will send a team to subdue the witch too."

"Wait, if the goal is to fight Walpurgisnacht, then why bother with other witches?" Fumiko piped up. "I mean, can't we leave those to the girls of Kamihama?"

"I understand your sentiment," Oriko said. "And for the most part, we do intend to leave the local witches to the girls of Kamihama. However, there are two reasons to treat the exceptionally powerful ones differently. The first reason is that they are not a natural occurrence. There are girls in this town who can capture and release witches, and they intend to sow exceptionally powerful witches across town as a distraction. Their intention is to keep us from fighting Walpurgisnacht. However, we cannot simply ignore those witches, due to the second reason. If one of those witches happens to encounter Walpurgisnacht and be consumed, defeating Walpurgisnacht would become all the more difficult. So, it is better to dispose of the exceptionally powerful witches before Walpurgisnacht even arrives."

"I guess that does make sense," Hinata Kaede said.

"I find it hard to argue with that," Lina agreed.

"But doesn't that argument apply to any witch?" Saki asked. "Why focus only on some of them?"

"It does apply to any witch, of course," Oriko said. "However, it should be obvious that the effect of consuming a witch scales with the power of the witch consumed. We cannot eliminate all the witches in Kamihama in such a short time. All we can do is focus on the strongest ones, which present the greatest risk if Walpurgisnacht consumes them."

"Hmm," Saki said. "Alright… I guess that makes sense."

"Yes, I can't think of any good counterargument at all," Lina agreed.

"In order to coordinate our attacks while spread out across the city, we will be using these communicators," Oriko continued.

She paused while Hijiri pulled one out to show it off.

"Ideally, we would like to give one communicator to each team," Oriko said. "However, we only have a limited number of communicators, so if your team is not able to acquire one, please endeavour to stay within telepathy range of someone who does have one. Could I have one person from each team raise their hands?"

Hijiri counted the hands raised – Liliane, Mari, Chinatsu, Lina, Hoshiko, Matsuri, Haruka, Yuuri, Remi, Nico, Sarra, and Lavi all raised their hands. Including one for Oriko as well, that would be thirteen, which meant they'd need to shave off three.

"It looks like we're three short!" Hijiri said. "If there are any amongst you who could share one…?"

After a brief wave of chatter, Haruka, Chinatsu, and Remi all lowered their hands.

"Then, everyone who still has their hand raised, come up and get one!" Hijiri said. "I'll explain how they work as well."

She repeated herself in English for Sarra's benefit, and then Oriko spoke up once more as the girls approached.

"As of now, we are all gathered, and awaiting a signal through the communicators," she said. "Once Miss Misono contacts us, we'll work out who should be sent out. Until then, please feel free to relax and wait."

It was about five minutes after Hijiri had explained the use of the communicators that sound blared out from them for the first time.

"Um, hello everyone! Misono Karin here! Um, I just saw a really strong witch appear in Sankyo Ward, is there anyone who can take care of it?"

"Aren't we in Sankyo Ward already?" Matsuri asked. "So that's pretty close… why don't we go out and take care of it?"

"Fine with me," Honoka said.

"I think that's a good idea," Haruka said.

So Matsuri pressed her speak button and replied.

"Um, Hinata Matsuri here. We can take care of it, but can you explain how to get there from the temple?"

"Head east towards Walnut's," Karin said. "You should be able to sense it soon enough."

"Got it!" Matsuri said. "Matsuri out!"

The Hohzuki girls got to their feet and filed outside. Now that things were getting started, the chatter was more subdued and scattered. A minute or two later, another report came in from Karin.

"Karin here! There's another one in Shinsei Ward!" she said. "Near Satomi Medical Centre!"

"We should be able to find that," Kaoru said. "So come on, let's get going!"

Saki shrugged. "Sure, it's gotta be better than waiting around here."

So the Pleiades Saints – Saki, Mirai, Satomi, Umika, Kaoru, Nico, and Michika – got to their feet and left. A few minutes later, Karin's voice crackled out of the communicators again.

"Karin here! There's a really strong one in Minaminagi Ward! I repeat, there's a really strong one in Minaminagi Ward! Minaminagi Seaside Park! This one's really strong! Even if I dragged in Yura-chan I think it'd be tough for me!"

At that point a new and unexpected voice followed up.

"Karin-chan, please keep an eye on the witch. Someone should be there in a minute or two."

It was Ashley's voice. Several people recognized it and called out her name.

"I think that means she's secured Miss Hozumi's help," Hijiri said. "So let's wait for her to arrive."

Sure enough, less than a minute later, a portal opened and Shizuku stepped through.

"Um, h-hello," she said.

"Welcome," Hijiri said. "Thank you very much for your help today, Miss Hozumi."

"Ah, um, I'm happy to help," Shizuku said. "So um… who will go to Minaminagi Ward?"

She closed the portal she arrived through and opened a new one.

"All you need to do is step through here."

"We'll go!" Komachi spoke up.

"Finally, some action!" Elise said.

"Come on, Shiori-chan, let's go!" Liliane said.

"Um, y-yes…!" Shiori said.

Together with Claire, Hiyori, and Sachie, the seven of them headed through Shizuku's portal, after which she closed it up behind them. A few minutes later, Karin's voice came out again.

"Karin here! I'm at the border of Sakae and Chuo Ward. There's a really strong witch somewhere close by, towards the public library."

"Here's a portal to the library," Shizuku said, opening a new portal.

"I think that'll be our cue," Lina said. "Come on, everyone."

Lina's team got to their feet and headed through the portal, which closed up behind them. A few minutes later, Karin called again.

"Karin here! A strong witch just appeared in Kosho Ward, at the old railway yard!"

"This will take you straight there," Shizuku said, opening another portal. "But I'll need a grief seed before I can open any more portals."

"That's fine, I have plenty," Hijiri said.

She extracted one from her bag and tossed it towards Shizuku, who caught it and purified her soul gem. At the same time, the remaining Mitakihara girls – Koharu, Mari, Noriko, and Miu – and the Kimiko sisters headed through her portal. Then Karin's voice was heard once again.

"Karin here! There's another strong witch here in Sankyo Ward!" she said. "It's at Kamihama Future Academy!"

This time, someone else responded before Shizuku had a chance to open a new portal.

"Matsuri here! We just finished up with our witch over here, and that's not far off! So we're already on our way!"

A second or two later, Ashley's voice issued from the communicator.

"Ashley here… is Kanna-chi at the temple right now?"

Hijiri took the communicator she'd planned to give to Oriko and pressed the speak button.

"Yes, is there a problem?"

The response came several seconds later.

"Something came up, so I need you here for a minute, Kanna-chi."

At that moment, a new portal opened up in the middle of the room.

"There should be a new portal that just opened," Ashley continued.

"Got it," Hijiri responded.

Releasing the speak button, she turned to Oriko and passed her the communicator.

"I'll let you hang onto this," she said. "Ashley-chan probably has a few to spare anyway."

Then she handed over a good-sized bag.

"And here are all the grief seeds I got from Pernelle, so you can hand them out when the time is right," Hijiri said. "Still… is it okay for me to leave you alone here?"

"Go ahead," Oriko said, accepting the bag and communicator. "I think Miss Hozumi and I can continue to direct things here in your absence."

Hijiri nodded and stepped through the portal. After bottling Kaede up, she then followed Momoko and Rena through the second portal that Maimai had opened. They emerged from the portal into the Coordinator's shop, where Mitama blinked at them in surprise.

"Oh! Long time no see, Kanna-chi!" she said. "And you're with Momoko-chan and Rena-chan… but where's Kaede-chan?"

"In here," Hijiri said.

She set the bell jar down on the floor and touched the control pad to make it expand to the height of a human.

"Ah," Mitama said. "I've seen this before… I call it 'doppel syndrome'. To think it would happen to Kaede-chan too… up until now, only a few feathers have suffered from it…"

"How did you treat them?" Momoko asked.

"I didn't," Mitama said. "I tried, believe me, but I couldn't find a treatment. I can't even reach the soul gem when they're in that state."

"Huh?" Momoko said. "If you didn't treat them, then what happened to them?"

"Just like Kanna-chi has done with Kaede-chan, I sealed them up," Mitama said. "I visit every so often to see if maybe I can think of something else…"

"Where are they?" Hijiri asked. "I've seen this before in Asunaro… I might be able to find a solution."

"In Asunaro?" Mitama said. "But if it's outside of Kamihama, shouldn't they have turned into a witch instead?"

"If they were a magical girl, yes," Hijiri said. "But not if they're an ordinary human. Forcibly injecting impurities into the body produces a phenomenon very similar to this. I'd even say it's pretty much identical. If they're a magical girl though, they would turn into a witch."

"Alright," Mitama said. "I'll show you."

She took them into a back room that looked like a kitchen. There was a door at the far side, which led out into an alleyway, and she crossed the alley and entered the building on the other side, taking them down a flight of stairs into a large room. There were several spherical tanks here, each of them containing a magical girl who had fused with their doppel. Each doppel had its name emblazoned across the inner surface of the tanks in witch runes.

The first one on the left contained a large, bulky green coat, the brown-haired feather's head just poking out where the chest would be. There were also equally bulky blue shorts with bamboo legs protruding, and ribbon-like hands poking out of the coat's sleeves. The thick yellow collar extended all the way down to the coat's hem, outlining the central section that was buttoned up with spherical buttons. A blue scarf looked like it was on the verge of choking the feather's body. Except for the sleeves and mottled green and purple fabric between the two sides of the yellow collar, the coat was covered in random buttons and pockets. Floating just above it was something that looked like a fur cap with hand-like wings. The witch runes spelled out the name Martina.

Opposite on the right was some sort of pink and red spiky worm creature. The green-haired feather's body was entrapped in a spherical pink shell with cyan scales on the bottom. A hole in one side of the shell appeared to expose raw flesh, and a rope of that flesh extended out to the larger part of the doppel, which was divided into roughly three segments. First, a tangle of pink ribbons. Then a series of purple rings that looked slightly metallic, each one lined with short silver spikes. Lastly was the segment which looked sort of like a head, with a few more silver spikes, eyes shaped like green plusses, a blue shield-shaped scale that sort of resembled a nose, and protrusions resembling the mandibles and antennae of an insect. There was also something that looked vaguely like a leg or arm – only one – and a pink bonnet with white polka dots on the creature's head. The witch runes spelled out the name Eckert.

The next one on the left resembled a blindingly-white monkey, but its hands were attached backwards, and its fur appeared to be made of countless strips of paper. Countless paper streamers in every imaginable colour exploded from the monkey's back like a great mass of tentacles. The dark-skinned black feather who was the source of the doppel took the place of the monkey's head. The witch runes spelled out the name Zanzibar.

Opposite on the right was a doppel that looked like someone had tried to assemble a humanoid robot but put the pieces together wrong. The left arm was a leg, the right leg was an arm, and the head was on backwards. The blue-haired feather generating the doppel could just barely be seen within the construct's chest, behind a translucent orange screen. The robot had a multi-segmented tail tipped with a garden trowel, and an open umbrella attached to the back of its neck, concealing its face. It had blue ropes for hair which tumbled down to just above the screen containing the girl's body. The witch runes spelled out the name 100239.

The last doppel was two tanks ahead on the right, and it looked like a navy blue carriage with yellow accents. The door looked like a gaping mouth, with an eye on either side. There was a strange structure towering on top, twin towers filled with what looked like some kind of green crystalline growth. The creature fastened up to pull the carriage looked like a mishmash of three or four different animals. The blonde girl generating the doppel was just barely visible within the carriage, and unlike the others here, appeared to be a white feather. The witch runes spelled out the name Cruz.

Those were the only five tanks that were filled – the rest were empty, presumably awaiting eventual tenants.

"I see," Hijiri said. "So you have a setup similar to our Freezer down here… though with far fewer tenants. Is there a place we could try letting someone out for a short time? Perhaps not Miss Kaede, as her doppel seems to be a very invasive one, but maybe one of the others? I'd like to try some things."

Mitama nodded, indicating an open area on the far side of the room. Momoko and Rena watched as they wheeled out the tank containing Eckert and unsealed it, letting her rampage around the room. Hijiri wielded her graph whip to keep the doppel from leaving the designated area. She also hemmed and hawed a bit, clearly deep in thought.

"So, what do you think?" Momoko asked eventually.

"I think she's in a grief spiral," Hijiri said.

"What does that mean?" Momoko asked.

"You haven't heard of it?" Hijiri said. "It's something that can happen when your soul gem is heavily tainted. The taint enhances negative emotions, making you feel more depressed. Then that depression further taints your soul gem, making you feel even more depressed, tainting it even more, until… boom, you're a witch."

"However, in Kamihama we have the automatic purification system," Mitama said. "So shouldn't the soul gem be purified and that's the end of it?"

"No, not really," Hijiri said. "If you were depressed in the first place, purifying your soul gem won't clear it up. So even though your soul gem has been purified, it'll continue to taint at a rapid rate, and you'll get right back into a grief spiral again."

"So she'd unleash her doppel twice in a row…?" Mitama said.

"Something like that," Hijiri said. "Not quite, though. Because she already unleashed her doppel, right? And then her soul gem filled up again, and the automatic purification system activated again… but the doppel was already out, so that energy served to strengthen the existing doppel rather than unleashing a second one."

"That makes sense so far," Mitama said. "In fact, it's pretty close to the facts I already worked out myself… the question is, how do we fix it?"

"I think breaking the grief spiral must be the key to fixing it," Hijiri said. "Even with it fused into her body like this, we could defeat the doppel, but that does no good if she just unleashes it again. On the other hand, if we can just interrupt the build-up of impurities, the doppel would eventually run out of steam and die off on its own."

"The only question is how we can do that," Momoko said. "Damn, I don't have any ideas…"

"The only thing I can think of is to erase her memories," Hijiri said.

"W-what, like all of them!?" Rena gasped.

"Yeah, all of them," Hijiri said. "If I used Umika's magic, I could certainly do it… but unlike Umika, I don't have a place to store those memories, so they'd be lost as soon as I released the magic. I could probably hold onto them for… oh, an hour or two at best. And I wouldn't be able to use any other copied magic while holding onto them. I could use my connect magic but that's about it."

"Y-you can't do that!" Rena exclaimed. "You absolutely can't! I'll fight you if you try it!"

"Calm down, Rena!" Momoko said. "I'm sure Miss, um… Kanna…?"

Hijiri nodded, and Momoko continued speaking.

"I'm sure Miss Kanna isn't actually planning to do it. She's just brainstorming ideas."

"Yeah… it's a bit too much of a risk to try that when I'm not even certain it would work," Hijiri said.

"What if you erased only part of her memories?" Mitama suggested.

"The problem with that is, I'd be going in blind," Hijiri said. "I can erase memories, or copy memories, but I can't read minds. So it would be like going to a shooting stall at a festival and doing it blindfolded."

"You have no way to know if the memories you erase are related to the grief spiral," Momoko said. "I see… this is quite the dilemma, isn't it…"

"I'll keep thinking about it," Hijiri said. "For now, however, we should probably put this one back in her tank."

"Alright," Mitama said.

So they stuffed Eckert back into the spherical tank she'd been sealed in earlier, and Hijiri plopped down on the ground to think. She wasn't sure how long it was, perhaps half an hour, but eventually she decided to pull another one out onto the floor to try a few things. This time, they brought out Martina. She'd only just gotten started when Ashley's voice issued from Momoko's communicator.

"Kanna-chi, just a heads-up, but we might have another doppel syndrome here in a moment," she said. "I left a portal in the Coordinator's place, if you have a moment."

"I can go," Mitama said. "You keep doing what you're doing."

"Okay," Hijiri said.

As Mitama left the room, Hijiri paused to talk to the communicator while Momoko pressed the speak button for her.

"Miss Yakumo is on her way. I'm a bit busy so I can't move right now."

While using her graph whip to keep Martina from leaving the designated area, Hijiri tried several tactics geared towards stemming the constant flow of grief into their soul gems, but nothing seemed to work. Some time later, Mitama returned, and this time she wasn't alone.

"Miss Mifuyu!" Momoko gasped. "What are you doing here?"

"I wanted to come check on everyone," Mifuyu said. "I heard about Kaede-chan… Miss Taylor told me you'd be here, Miss Momoko."

"What happened to the girl Ashley-chan mentioned?" Hijiri asked.

"Her doppel carried her outside the barrier, and she turned into a witch," Mitama said.

"But she got the grief seed, presumably?" Hijiri said.

"No, apparently she didn't even drop one," Mitama said.

"Huh… that's unusual," Hijiri said. "For a newly-spawned witch, at least. Oh well… I guess there's nothing to be done in that case…"

"Miss Taylor did suggest that illusion magic might be able to free these girls," Mitama said.

"I'd actually considered trying it before," Mifuyu said. "But I have to admit… I was scared that I wouldn't have enough magic to complete it properly. However, now… I don't want to hold back anymore."

"Okay, in that case, I'll put this one away," Hijiri said. "Then you can try whatever."

So she stuffed Martina back into the spherical tank, and Mifuyu looked around at the six girls who were trapped in doppel syndrome. Then she transformed and activated her magic, and Momoko gasped.

"H-hold on a second!" she said. "That level of magic… you won't survive that!"

"If I can at least rescue these girls, it'll be worth it," Mifuyu said.

"Then at least let me help," Momoko said.

"No, I can't let you get caught up in this," Mifuyu said. "These girls are like this because of my mistake. I should be the one to put them right. You stand back."

"Not a chance!" Momoko said. "No, never! I'll save you! We're friends, aren't we? And friends stick together! Don't make me turn a blind eye anymore! So… how can we save them?"

"This is just my theory," Mifuyu said. "But doppels come from the darknesses within a magical girl's heart. If it's trying to fuse with their souls and take over… then we'll have to touch their souls directly and rip it away."

"So, you want us to set all six of them free?" Hijiri said.

"That… yes, I believe it would be easier to work on them if they were not confined," Mifuyu said.

"Sounds good to me," Momoko said. "Let me back you up, like in the old days."

"Right!" Mifuyu said. "Miss Momoko, let's go!"

As Hijiri and Mitama released all the doppels from confinement and stepped back along with Rena, Momoko seized Mifuyu's hands, initiating connection, and there was an unusually bright flash as their powers were combined. Hijiri couldn't quite tell what the magic was doing, but it seemed to be illusion magic. Perhaps it was projecting some kind of paradise into each girl's mind. That would certainly do the trick for freeing them from the grief spiral – create an environment where they can easily forget their grief. And sure enough… it took several minutes, but eventually the constant flow of taint filling their soul gems slowed. Mifuyu let out a grunt of effort, falling to one knee, and Momoko allowed her to lean on her for support.

Even with Momoko helping, though, it was taking a great strain on their soul gems. A crack formed in each of them, warning that they would need to stop soon if they wanted to survive the attempt, but Mifuyu refused to give up. She struggled back to her feet, reaching out towards the first of the doppels, Eckert. Hijiri couldn't get close enough to keep the doppels under control with her graph whip, but Momoko raised her sword just to be on the safe side. However, she did not attack. The two of them stepped in close to the doppel, avoiding its attacks and reaching the girl's body. Mifuyu pushed the feather robe out of the way and cupped the girl's soul gem. She then repeated this process for each of the other girls, her own soul gem filling with impurities as she went.

It must have been a couple of minutes, but finally the flow of taint stopped entirely, and Mifuyu's and Momoko's soul gems were almost completely tainted. Finally, Mifuyu let out a shout, and Momoko followed suit..

"Assault… Paranoia…!"

"Universe… Edge…!"

With one last burst of magic, the two of them attacked all six doppels at once, causing them to disintegrate. However, that final attack was too much for their soul gems to handle, and both of them shattered at the same time, their transformations cancelled as they fell to the ground. As Mitama and Hijiri collected the freed girls and laid them out neatly, Rena gasped and ran over to the two of them.

"Momoko, nooo!"

She knelt by Momoko, shaking her a little, but it was already too late – Momoko didn't respond in the slightest.

Perhaps because she'd only been afflicted for a short time, Kaede was the first to wake up, rubbing at her head.

"Ah… Miss Mitama…?"

"Good morning, Kaede-chan," Mitama said. "Although, perhaps I should drop the 'good'…"

"Miss Mifuyu… Momoko-chan… I felt them," Kaede said. "It was so warm… but where are they now…?"

Hijiri wordlessly pointed to where Rena was already sobbing over Momoko's body, and Kaede gasped.

"Rena-chan…? W-what's wrong with Momoko-chan…!?"

She got to her feet and ran over..

"Kaede…" Rena sobbed. "At least you're okay… you were scared of losing your home, weren't you? But no matter what happens to you, Kaede, you'll always have a home with me… I promise you that much! So please! Tell me that you'll always be there for me, too!"

"Rena-chan!?" Kaede gasped. "Um… is that really you, Rena-chan? Y-you're not a Mirrors copy or something, are you?"

"I'm the real Rena, you idiot!" Rena shouted.

"Of… of course I'll be there for you, Rena-chan!" Kaede said, kneeling next to Momoko. "I didn't realize you actually felt that way… b-but… w-what about Momoko-chan?"

"She's… gone," Rena sobbed. "She left the two of us alone… it's only you and me now, so I had to get that off my chest."

"Momoko-chan… n-no way…" Kaede said.

Before long, she too had broken down in tears.

"I… I heard Momoko-chan's last words," Kaede sobbed. "She apologized… for not understanding me properly… and… she was like… maybe everything's not okay… but… but… but it's not as bad as it could be… so she said we should be friends forever… and then, the next thing I knew… I woke up over there…"

"Momoko… she must have wanted to make sure you didn't fall back into the same depression," Rena sobbed. "But she didn't have to go so far that she broke her soul gem! Geez, Momoko, you idiot!"

"Momoko," Mitama muttered. "Must magical girls suffer their whole lives like this…? Now even you have left me… how long must I endure…?"

Since their soul gems didn't seem to be in any real danger, Hijiri let them cry until they were quite finished. The other feathers eventually woke up too, and Hijiri let Mitama take care of explaining what had happened to them. Finally, Rena sat up, a serious look on her face.

"We don't have time for this!" she gasped. "Walpurgisnacht is coming!"

"W-whaaat!?" Kaede gasped. "Um… what is Walpurgisnacht?"

"It's a terrible witch!" Rena said.

"An ancient witch that brings disaster and devastation wherever she goes," Mitama spoke up.

"O-oh no…!" Kaede gasped. "B-but, I don't think I could even do anything against such a terrible witch…"

"It'll be fine!" Rena said. "I'll be there with you! And all the other magical girls of Kamihama, too! Konomi, Kako, you name them, I'm sure they'll all be there!"

"Ah, Konomi-chan and Kako-chan too!?" Kaede gasped. "I… I guess… I can give it my best…"

Hijiri reclaimed Momoko's communicator, and then Rena gathered up Momoko's body while Mitama gathered up Mifuyu's. They carried them up to the Coordinator's office, laying them down next to Kuroe, then headed outside. Kaede gasped, for the rain was really coming down hard now, and the wind had picked up quite a bit.

"T-the weather… is it a typhoon!?"

"That's the effect of Walpurgisnacht's proximity," Hijiri said. "It should be heading north right around now, so if we go towards Satomi Medical Centre, we should eventually find it."

"Then let's go!" Rena said.

All nine of them hurried north – four black feathers, one white feather, Rena, Kaede, Mitama, and Hijiri. As they travelled, Ashley's voice emanated from the communicator.

"How are things going over there?" she asked.

Shizuku replied almost immediately.

"Um, well, it seems that the witch just showed up," she said. "Miss Oriko and Miss Madoka went out to meet it with their teams. Miss Sakura, Miss Natsu, and Miss Satomi also went with them. I was about to call everyone back. Everyone, please let me know where you are so I can send you there!"

"Whoops, looks like I was wrong," Hijiri said. "Walpurgisnacht still hasn't reached land yet… or rather, it only just made landfall."

"Could I ask the Shiina sisters to come here instead?" Ashley asked. "If you return to Suitoku Temple, there's a portal connecting to here."

"Okay," Remi's voice came through. "We're with Yuuri-chan and Airi-chan, should they come too? And Fumiko-chan is here too."

"I guess it'd be best if the three of them went to Walpurgisnacht instead," Ashley said. "I just want your abilities in case something goes wrong here."

"Got it," Remi said. "We'll be there soon."

"And Karin-chan, if your spotting work is done, please head to Walpurgisnacht as well," Ashley added.

"Will do!" Karin's voice came through. "I'm just gonna drag out Yura-chan first and then I'll be there!"

"Ah, even Karin-chan is getting involved with this!?" Kaede gasped. "That really takes me back… I haven't seen her for quite awhile…"

After that, everyone else came on the line to announce their positions.

"We're in Kosho Ward, near the school," Yuuri said.

"We're in Minaminagi Ward!" Liliane said. "I'm not quite sure where, but I can see the wind turbines in the distance!"

"We're just outside Minaminagi Liberty Academy!" Mari said.

"We're next to an old abandoned mansion with a powerful witch in it," Lina said.

"That sounds like the Mirror Mansion?" Shizuku said. "In Minaminagi Ward, near Daito Ward, right?"

"I think so," Lina said.

"We just passed by Sakae General School a few minutes ago," Hoshiko said. "About five minutes west of there?"

"We're on the university campus," Matsuri said. "I can see the Humanities building straight ahead."

"We're somewhere in Sakae Ward," Nico said. "There's an old building in the middle of the railway tracks just a bit to the north of us."

"That sounds like the Memory Museum," Shizuku replied.

"We appear to be in Chuo Ward, near the library," Lavi said.

"I'm afraid I have no idea where we are," Sarra said in English. "I'm sorry… we'll just work our way west until we sense the witch."

Hijiri pressed the speak button and responded in the same language.

"Are you at least near the coast?"

"I think we're somewhere close to the airport," Chevonne said.

"Is there a park nearby?" Hijiri asked. "Minaminagi Seaside Park should be fairly close to the airport…"

"Yes, I see something!" Janice exclaimed.

"Miss Hozumi, can you open a portal to Minaminagi Seaside Park?" Hijiri asked in Japanese.

"Okay," Shizuku replied.

"Can you see the portal?" Hijiri asked in English.

"I can sense some magic!" Gisèle spoke up.

"There it is!" Alice exclaimed. "A park, with a portal! That must be it!"

After that, the line finally fell silent. A few seconds later, Rena spoke up.

"So now that all that radio gibberish is over… are you saying we're heading in the wrong direction?" she asked. "You said just now that the witch hasn't reached land yet… so should we be heading towards the coast instead?"

"H-hey, wait a moment!" Kaede gasped. "W-what's that over there!?"

She pointed to the east, where some remnants of smoke and fire from the Eve battle were just barely visible.

"There are girls fighting a different witch in Chuo Ward," Hijiri explained. "I'm guessing what you're seeing is related to that. They're fighting not in a labyrinth but in the real world, so it makes sense that there would be fires."

"Oh no!" Kaede gasped. "U-um… w-which witch should we…?"

"We have to keep the two of them from meeting," Hijiri said. "So…"

"I know!" Kaede exclaimed. "Let's ask Karin-chan to help them out! She's really strong!"

"I don't know," Hijiri said. "I mean, there's already a lot of people fighting over there… I don't know exactly who, though…"

"But if there are fires like that, they might need some more help!" Kaede pointed out.

"Well… if you want to, I guess it's okay," Hijiri said.

She pressed the speak button and allowed Kaede to speak.

"Karin-chan! There's fires in Chuo Ward, did you see them?"

Hijiri released the button, and Karin responded almost immediately.

"What! No, I'm in Sakae Ward right now!" she said. "What's going on? I thought Walpurgisnacht was supposed to be in Shinsei Ward!"

As Kaede opened her mouth, Hijiri pressed the speak button again.

"I don't know, but there's something big happening over there!" Kaede said. "A girl with me said there's another witch over there, and we can't allow the two of them to meet… they might not need any more help, but it can't hurt to be sure, right?"

Hijiri released the button, and Karin responded.

"Roger! I'll drop by there on my way over and see how things are going! Thanks for the info, Kaede-chan!"

"As for us," Rena said. "We should be heading back to the coast, right? Or… should we form a line of defence near here in case that witch gets away?"

"I think that might be better," Kaede said.

"I think it's better to go where we know there'll be a witch, rather than where there might be one soon," Mitama said.

Hijiri shrugged. "I'll leave the decision up to you guys."

"U-um… c-can I say something?" the white feather said.

"What is it?" Rena snapped. "Who the hell are you, anyway…?"

"Ah! U-um… well… I was called Nene in the Wings of the Magius," she said. "Um… I just wanted to say… if you're not sure, we could roll the dice…"

"What do you mean?" Hijiri asked.

"Ah, um… you see, my magic is related to luck," she explained. "So um… I thought we could use it to decide which way to go…"

"Well, if you wanna do it, hurry up and do it!" Rena snapped.

"R-right away!" Nene gasped.

She summoned a staff with a mobile disc at the top, like the spinner used in some kinds of board games to decide the next move or other things. Just like a spinner, the disc was split up into segments, each of them labelled in tiny witch runes.

"Huh," Hijiri said. "Why are our names on your staff?"

"Eh?" Nene said. "Um… I don't really know what you mean, but… I guess it might be because you're nearby…? The symbols on the spinner are different every time… I have no idea what they mean though."

Without futher ado, Nene gripped the disc and spun it, closing her eyes. It spun, and spun, and spun, and finally crawled to a stop on the segment labelled with Kaede's name.

"Ah!" Nene gasped. "Oh my… whose power is this? Vines, deletion…"

"Huh?" Kaede said. "That's my power, why?"

"Oh, um… it's really strong, right?" Nene said. "You're lucky to have such a great power…"

"N-no, um… I'm actually pretty weak!" Kaede protested.

"Um, just to clarify, but… am I to take it that we've decided to continue heading towards Satomi Medical Centre?" Hijiri asked. "Since the spinner stopped on Miss Kaede, and she wanted to go there…"

"Um… I think that's good," Kaede said. "Then if the other witch suddenly gets away… we should be able to stop it before it can reach Walpurgisnacht, right?"

"Y-yes, with this power of yours, we definitely can!" Nene exclaimed.

"T-then let's hurry!" Kaede said.

They all broke out into a run, heading north until they could see Satomi Medical Centre up ahead. It only took about five minutes, but as they came to a stop, they saw what they'd been dreading – a massive moth-like monstrosity flying in from the east.

"Oh my goodness, that's huge!" Mitama gasped.

"We've gotta get a good vantage point to take that on!" Rena said. "Let's find a good rooftop!"

After a few moments of searching, they selected a rooftop near the hospital, all nine of them racing up the stairs to reach the roof. As they made it up there, Eve finally landed in a nearby park, throwing up a cloud of dust and debris. Rena transformed, donning her magical girl outfit for just a moment before taking on Kaede's form instead. Then Kaede also transformed, as did Nene, shedding her feather robes. Kaede seized Rena's and Nene's hands as they stepped forward.

Vines sprouted up around the witch, coiling about it and holding her in place. With all three of them contributing, it was done in a flash. Rena reverted to her normal form and turned to Kaede.

"You saw that, right, Kaede?" she said. "We'll be okay on our own!"

"Will Momoko-chan tell us we did a good job?" Kaede wondered.

"Of course she will!" Rena retorted. "The two of us won't lose to anyone!"

"Let's jump!" Nene said. "Um… it'll be faster, and uh… I can slow our fall!"

So with the initial binding work done, Nene resummoned her feather robes, and everyone leapt off the roof, vines sprouting up to catch them and lower them safely to the ground.

---

Just after Alina Eve fled to the west…

"Maimai, open a portal to the helipad so everyone else can come through," I said.

She did as I asked, and the Amane twins emerged from it almost immediately, followed by Yukika and everyone else who had been at the helipad – not just the ones I'd sent there, but also most of the feathers who had been sent out into the town. I even recognized a few of them, such as Megumi Moka, or Tamura and friends. The only person who wasn't among them was Mifuyu, but I hadn't really been expecting her to be there.

Just as Pernelle had predicted, Alina Eve crash-landed a few hundred metres away, throwing up a cloud of dust and debris. Kazumi raised a barrier so that none of the debris hit us. Before the dust had even started to clear up, huge wooden vines sprouted up from the ground around it, coiling around and binding it in place. I looked around for the source and spotted two of Akino Kaede standing on a nearby roof, the same one Alina had jumped off when she first became a magical girl. One of them almost immediately reverted to the shape of Rena with a flash, and I listened in on them with my clairvoyance. It seemed Mitama and Hijiri were with them too, standing just behind them. In addition, there were four black feathers and one other magical girl I'd never seen before, who I guessed was also a former feather. She wore what looked like a yellow tracksuit jacket, held closed at the neck and waist but spread open to bare her midriff. It had a sailor-style collar and a white ribbon tied in a bow at the neck, with her circular yellow soul gem set at the centre of the bow. The jacket had long sleeves, which even ended in gloves for her hands. She had knee-high boots on her feet, and a very steampunk-looking helmet – it consisted of goggles resting atop her head, two bunny-ear tanks filled with lime green fluid, and a pair of fat cables dangling down to her ankles. The goggles were not transparent. One of the cables had a pair of pins on the end, while the other had three triangle markings pointing towards the end. Her hair was long and blonde, and she had blue eyes.

Without me even needing to ask, the others with binding powers – Sana, Chiyoko, and Kanoko – added to the restraints, holding Alina Eve in place so thoroughly that her struggles to get free didn't seem to have much of an effect at all. Iroha gently set Ui's body down on a nearby bench before aiming her crossbow at the witch, ready to attack at a moment's notice.

"Everyone, concentrate your attacks!" I called. "It has a prodigious amount of energy, but it's not infinite! It's technically not a witch, and is quite unstable, so if left alone it would slowly dissipate anyway, but we just need to make it break down faster!"

I summoned a couple of Teddy Drones to join the attack with my beams, and while leaving them on auto-pilot I headed over to speak with the Amane twins.

"What happened to Miss Mifuyu?" I asked.

"Miss Mifuyu went to see the Coordinator," Tsukuyo said. "We have not heard from her since."

"I see," I said. "Then more than likely she's no longer with us."

"Y-you can't be serious!" Tsukasa gasped.

"Rena and Kaede-chan have shown up without Miss Momoko," I said. "The only reason I can think of for them to leave her is if she's not coming. The girls with doppel syndrome… perhaps Miss Mifuyu found a way to release them, but…"

Hijiri ran up to join me. Mitama, Kaede, and Rena were no longer with her, but the latter two had now joined in the assault. The feathers had disappeared too, lost amongst the indistinguishable crowd of those who hadn't shed their robes. I couldn't see the unfamiliar girl anywhere. If she was a feather as I suspected, perhaps she'd put her robes back on.

"You are correct, Ashley-chan," Hijiri said. "Miss Mifuyu and Miss Momoko overloaded their soul gems in order to heal the doppel syndrome."

"Oh no," Tsukuyo said. "Without Miss Mifuyu… what shall we tell all the feathers!?"

"We'll tell them nothing until this is over," I said. "Then we'll say she sacrificed herself to save them, or something like that. It's true, after all."

"I guess you're right," Tsukasa said. "Now isn't the time to worry about that…"

Suddenly, Alina Eve let out a burst of magical power as a shockwave, knocking everyone off their feet except for Tsukihi and Karin, who were airborne. Even they were propelled backwards by several metres, narrowly avoiding a collision with the nearby buildings. Ui's bench was jostled too, but not enough to knock her off of it. I sat up almost immediately, but it looked like some of the girls were much worse off than me. There were even a few pinned beneath rubble that had been shifted by the shockwave.

Yachiyo was the first to get to her feet.

"Mifuyu… Momoko… Mel… Kanae…" she said. "Huh? Mifuyu…? Momoko…?"

Iroha sat up next to her, looking around. Her eyes fell on Ui for a moment, but then she turned to Yachiyo.

"Is something wrong with Momoko-chan?" she asked.

Kaede, a short distance away, broke down in tears just from the mention of her name.

"Nooooo, Momoko-chan!" she wailed. "I don't wanna be a magical girl without her!"

"Buck up, Kaede!" Rena snapped. "Momoko wouldn't want you to waste the life she gave you!"

"I know… I know, but…"

"Did something happen… to Momoko?" Yachiyo asked. "Is that… why I heard her voice in my head just now?"

I got to my feet and dusted myself off, working my way over to her.

"I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but it's true," I said. "I just heard the news myself… Momoko and Miss Mifuyu overloaded their soul gems, just like Miss Yukino once did."

Iroha gasped. "O-oh no… so then…?"

"We're up to three casualties now," I said. "Let's hope we can finish this before anyone else dies. Though it's ironic that none of the casualties so far were from actually fighting…"

"But this thing is just so strong," Felicia said. "No matter what we throw at it, it has barely any effect at all!"

"If it were just Eve, I'd be confident that I can force it to disperse," I said. "I think the method will work even with this combined form, but I'm not completely confident… and I'm worried that it would just repeat the original tragedy that caused all this in the first place, only without Nemu to prolong the inevitable."

"What's your method?" Yachiyo asked.

"That's not a conventional witch or even a doppel," I said. "It's a conglomeration of emotions, swirling like a blazing star. They'll burn out on their own in a few days, but we can't afford to just watch until that happens. Where did Mokyu go…?"

I'd lost track of the little creature during the shockwave, but as I said its name, it scampered over and hopped up onto my shoulder, making one of its cute noises.

"Mokyu is the shell of an incubator," I said. "It abhors emotion, so if it were to jump into the centre of that emotional storm, all the emotions would be dispersed. However, there's a catch. Right now, Mokyu is holding on to part of Ui's soul. It's specifically the part that's capable of experiencing emotions, as a way to prevent the impurities that she gathers from overwhelming her soul gem. So, I don't think it can disperse Eve while it's housing her soul. We'd need to restore Ui's soul… but I don't know what state the automatic purification system is in right now. If Ui's power goes out of control the moment we restore her soul, if we're lucky she'll unleash her doppel… if we're unlucky, she might turn into a witch. I think the system is still functioning, but I doubt it's functioning at optimal capacity, given that Alina took her barrier down."

"I think I understand what you mean," Iroha said. "Miss Taylor… do you know all of that because you've experienced everything before?"

"Essentially," I said. "Something similar, at least. But last time Alina didn't merge with Eve like this, and she didn't take down her barrier. So that's why I can't guarantee the same solution will work."

"I don't like the idea, but… if we can keep it tied down, waiting it out is technically an option," Yachiyo said. "The only problem is, it could get away from us at any moment… and what would we do then?"

"Yeah… that's no good," Iroha said. "We still have Walpurgisnacht to defeat too, don't we?"

"And Walpurgisnacht is coming this way," I said. "We absolutely cannot allow the two of them to merge together. It could cause a shockwave that's felt across the city. In the worst case, perhaps the entire city could be levelled… Takarazaki too, since we're pretty close to the border here."

"Then… are there any other options?" Iroha asked.

"I don't know," I said. "All I know for sure is that we can't just leave it, and it's probably too strong to defeat in direct combat within the time limit. Using Mokyu to disperse it is also a gamble, though. And to make matters worse… even if Mokyu disperses it, I bet Walpurgisnacht would still swallow up part of it, making it all the more difficult to defeat her."

"So we need to disperse it, but also funnel it away from Walpurgisnacht," Yachiyo said. "Is there anyone here who could do that?"

I looked around at the girls who had assembled here. About half of them were on the ground. A great many of them still wore feather robes. The Crescent Moon team… Kanagi and Mitama… Kaede and Rena… Kazumi, Hijiri, Remi, and Moe… Nanaka's team… the four girls of St Lilliana's… Mayoi and the fire sisters… Chiyoko and Sakuya… Kanoko and Himika… the Amane twins and Yukika… Asuka and Sasara… Manaka and Tsumugi… Ria, Mayu, and Sayuki… Riko and Rui… Karin, Hotaru, and Akari… the Azalea sisters… Inui and Mabayu… the white feathers known as Myu and Majime… the black feather known as Hana… Akane Sumire… Megumi Moka… the East Mitakihara feather trio… Hagumu and Shigure… and a few dozen black and white feathers that I didn't recognize. One other white feather I recalled being referred to as Hime in the previous timeline did not appear to be present. Perhaps she, like Sorashi, chose to wipe her hands of Kamihama. I could also call in Shizuku at a moment's notice, probably… but I'm not sure what good that would do.

"What other options could there be…?" Iroha muttered. "Something that can channel the impurities away from Walpurgisnacht… something that could move it somewhere else where it wouldn't cause trouble… something that could hide it from Walpurgisnacht so she doesn't come this way…"

"The moon," I mused. "If there were someone who could send her to the moon… it would probably cut off any chance of expanding the automatic purification system though…"

"Wait, I can't let that pass!" Iroha gasped. "What's this about expanding it?"

"I don't even know if it's possible now," I say. "If Eve and Old Dorothy hadn't been merged together, the rejected emotions from when Mokyu took charge would've been the key to eventually expanding the automatic purification system to cover the entire planet. But I don't know if that's still possible now that they've merged together… still, if Touka and Nemu could be revived, I imagine they could come up with another way to expand it."

"C-could Miss Shizuku send it to the moon?" Sana spoke up.

"I don't think so," I said. "From what I heard, her range is about from here to Singapore. The moon is… I don't have exact numbers, but probably on the order of a hundred times further. Even with Kazumi-chan boosting her, I doubt it'd be enough."

I didn't know the powers that most of the feathers possessed, and I didn't know much about the fire sisters, but if I considered those that I did know, was there anyone who could do one of the things Iroha had proposed? Meiyui probably could've hidden it… Ria probably could've as well… but I didn't know how effective that would've been. It would've prevented the worst case of the two merging, but Walpurgisnacht would've probably still sucked up some of the impurities.

I suspected Shizuku was the only one that could move it somewhere else, but the problem was deciding where to. Was there anywhere at all on Earth that would've been acceptable? And the only other options would've been high up in the air, which was also bad, or deep beneath the earth, which… I couldn't've even evaluated what that might've done. From here to Singapore was several thousand kilometres, so that distance upwards probably would've put it outside the atmosphere, but it would've only fallen straight back down, and I didn't know how long that would've taken or if it would've disintegrated before re-entering. Plus, there was the chance that it could fly even in space, which would've meant it could've intentionally re-entered the atmosphere.

Did that mean the only option was to somehow divert the impurities as they dispersed?

"The old prison," Kanagi said suddenly. "It's not used anymore, so it wouldn't matter if it's destroyed. If nothing else, it would buy us some time. We could defeat Walpurgisnacht, and deal with this… thing… afterwards."

"That's perfect!?" I gasped.

I took out my communicator and pressed the speak button.

"Miss Hozumi, I need you here right now! We're near Satomi Medical Centre! I have a question… or a request… for you!"

"Okay," Shizuku replied.

About a minute later, she stepped out of a portal and joined us.

"Miss Shizuku!" Sana said. "I'm glad you're okay! I heard you were brainwashed…"

"Well… you could say Ryo and Ikumi helped me figure some things out," Shizuku said. "What's your request, Miss Taylor? Is it something to do with that huge witch over there?"

"Yeah… we want to move it someplace else," I said. "First of all… can you even do that?"

"Hmm… I've never made such a large portal," Shizuku said. "However… if it's not far, I think I can manage."

"How far is not far?" I asked.

"Let me think," Shizuku said. "Probably… Tokyo would be a bit of a stretch…?"

"That's pretty far though!?" Tsuruno gasped. "Not as far as Singapore, sure, but still…"

"I was only thinking to the other side of Kamihama," I said.

"That should be no problem, then," Shizuku said.

"Next question… what would happen if you tried to open a portal into solid rock… or even not solid rock, but say, a catacombe?"

"I've tried it before," Shizuku said. "Solid rock is not possible. Underwater is possible. A catacombe would be fine with a regular small portal, but with a large one… I've never tried that before. I suspect it wouldn't work too well, if at all."

"Hmm, in that case, we should prepare to tie it down on the other side," I said. "Kaede-chan, Rena, Miss Yayoi, and Chiyoko!"

"Y-yes!?" Kaede gasped.

"We're going to teleport the witch to the old prison," I said. "Can I trust you to bind it down again like you did earlier?"

"You can count on me!" Kanoko said.

"No problem!" Chiyoko said.

"Ah, um… s-sure," Kaede said.

"Then Miss Hozumi, open a portal there for us, so the four of them can go through. Also… we'll have the Amane twins use Flute Blossom Resonance, and Inui, you use your charm. And Kazumi-chan, you'll go as well so that they're all boosted."

"We will do our best!" Tsukuyo said.

"You can count on us!" Tsukasa said.

"Alright, let's do this!" Inui said.

"And could you give Kazumi-chan your communicator?" I asked.

"Sure," Shizuku said.

So Shizuku opened a portal, and everyone I'd named headed through it, Kazumi taking the communicator. Everyone's uniform was powered down as Kazumi passed through. Once the portal was closed, I pressed the speak button.

"Are you all ready? In a moment, the witch will appear right in front of you. You need to be ready to chain it down before it escapes!"

There was a delay before the response came.

"All ready and accounted for!" Kazumi said.

"Okay, Miss Hozumi, when you're ready…"

Shizuku nodded, turning to face the witch.

"I could… use a boost," she said. "Like… connect…?"

"Hmm… if I recall correctly, your element is light," I said. "So Miss Tamaki, could you connect?"

"R-right!" Iroha said.

Shizuku tilted her head. "My… element…?"

I glanced towards the south. The witch was already visible in the distance, and I could see the flashes of red, yellow, blue, and pink magic from the Holy Brigade, as well as other flashes from the many other girls fighting against it. It was travelling a bit faster than I'd expected.

"Never mind that right now, we're almost out of time," I said.

Iroha grabbed Shizuku's hand, and there was a flash of light heralding a connect activation. I opened a vision on the other end so I could see what was happening – the four girls responsible for the bindings were standing near the lake shore, facing the prison, with the others just behind them.

A portal opened directly underneath Alina Eve, sucking it in. The exit opened on the other side, and as Alina Eve emerged upside down, double Kaede stepped forward with Chiyoko and Kanoko to prepare the bindings. Only seconds later, the witch had almost fully emerged.

"Flute Blossom Resonance!" the twins chanted.

The witch twitched, but apparently the magic was effective, preventing it from moving. As soon as the inky portal vanished beneath it, Inui shouted out.

"Look at me!"

And then the double Kaede called up vines like before, holding the witch in place, and Kanoko and Chiyoko reinforced them with their own magic.

"You can open a portal to call them back now, Miss Hozumi."

I press the speak button. "Everyone except Kazumi-chan, please return through the portal!"

Inui emerged first, followed by the Amane twins and everyone else.

"Miss Tsukuyo, could you pick out some of the black feathers here to send through?" I asked. "Just to keep an eye on it, so they don't need to be particularly strong. Maybe some white feathers, too, if you have someone in mind. Not Miss Nanase or the two of you, please. Oh, and not Akane Sumire."

Tsukuyo nodded. "I can choose some," she said. "Though I am not sure which one is Akane Sumire…"

I raised my voice. "Akane Sumire, please lower your hood!"

The black feather in question jumped to her feet to protest.

"W-why should I!?" she said. "Ah…"

"Well, now you know who she is," I said.

"R-right," Tsukuyo said,

She selected Hana, Moka, Shigure, and Hagumu, as well four black feathers and a blonde white feather who I didn't recognize, and ushered them through the portal. Once they were through, I pressed the speak button again.

"Kazumi-chan, please give your communicator to the white feather and come back through."

"Got it!" Kazumi said.

As Kazumi emerged from the portal, everyone's outfits were powered up once more. I pressed the speak button again.

"Um… I'm sorry, I don't know your name or nickname or anything…?"

"Um, I'm known as Nene…!"

Oh, that voice was actually vaguely familiar. I think she was the one who had been speaking with Mifuyu just after the assembly, back when I was assigned the Rumour of the Stardust Time Viewer – the one who wasn't sure why she'd been made a white feather.

"Alright, Nene, you and your team over there can count yourselves lucky, because your task is very simple. Don't attack, just stay out of the witch's way… all you have to do is use this communicator to let me know if she manages to get free. You can try to chase her if that happens, but only for the purpose of keeping track of where she is – do not engage. Also, watch out for familiars. I don't know if it'll throw some at you or not, but just keep in mind the possibility."

"Alright! I got it!" Nene said. "I won't let you… or Miss Tsukuyo down!"

"In addition, if it looks like it's starting to get free, try to tighten the restraints so it doesn't," I said. "Don't risk your lives, but if it looks safe, please try to ensure it won't escape."

"Understood!" Nene said.

I turned towards the south, where Walpurgisnacht was coming inexorably towards us. The Holy Brigade and everyone else were fighting her, and it looked like about one-third of the main gear had already been broken off. Iroha gently gathered Ui up from the bench again, and all of us approached the battle while keeping our eyes peeled for flying chunks of rubble, which Walpurgisnacht seemed to be tossing around like so much rubbish using her signature gravity magic.

All told, there were nearly a hundred magical girls already fighting Walpurgisnacht. In addition to the eight-member Holy Brigade and Oriko's team of four, I could see the West Mitakihara team that had now swelled to seven members; the East Mitakihara and Kazamino alliance of Koharu, Noriko, Miu, Anzu, Chinatsu, and Mari; Lina's team from West Kazamino; the Matsumiya trio; the Hohzuki team of eight; the seven Pleiades Saints together with Yuuri, Airi, and Fumiko making up the Asunaro team; my four friends from America along with the François sisters; the Folklore of Zero quartet; Sue, Coeurl, and four of the black feathers who had joined my resistance movement; the three white feathers and seven black feathers who'd agreed to join the battle after being defeated at Fendt Hope; the Daito Apartments trio; the Chuo trio plus Natsuki; and a collection of loosely-associated girls mostly from Kamihama, including Meguru, Hinano, Mitsune, Ren, Rika, Emiri, Konomi, Ayaka, Ai, Ryoko, and Nayuta.

But the group on my side was even larger, comprising the five-member Crescent Moon Villa team plus Kanagi; Nanaka's team; the St Lilliana's quartet; the Kanoko and Himika duo; the Futatsugi duo; Mayoi and the fire sisters; Karin's Sakae trio; the Mizuna quintet; Yukika and the Amane twins; the rescue duo of Sasara and Asuka; the Azalea sisters; Rena and Kaede; Mitama, Shizuku, Riko, and Rui; Hijiri, Kazumi, Sumire, Remi, Moe, and Mabayu; the East Mitakihara feather trio; myself and Inui; and on the order of seventy mostly black feathers with a few white sprinkled among them.

If all of those were added up, it came to more than two hundred. With this many, there should've been no chance of losing… the only remaining question was what the cost would be.

"Miss Hozumi… was there anyone else left at the temple with you?" I asked.

Shizuku shook her head. "No… I was the last one there," she said. "Everyone else was sent to fight Walpurgisnacht."

I nodded.

"Everyone who can still fight, let's go take on Walpurgisnacht!" I shouted. "Her weakness is the gigantic gear she's suspended from! If possible, aim for that!"

"Um… what should we do with Ui?" Iroha asked.

"Ah, good point," I said. "Why not drop her off at Crescent Moon Villa? Miss Hozumi, could you take care of that?"

"Ah, um… yes," Shizuku said.

As she opened the portal, I added an addendum.

"You could also leave the soul gems of the Magius there, if you wanted," I said. "Karin-chan, you could leave Alina's there too, for the time being."

"Ah, um… I think I'd prefer to hang onto it," Karin said. "But thanks for the suggestion."

Iroha however stepped through the portal, reappearing a few moments later without her sister.

"That makes me feel more at ease," Iroha said. "Now I can fight without worry!"

Finally, we drew close enough that some of the fighters were beginning to notice our approach, and close enough for those of us with long-ranged attacks to start attacking.

"Onee-san!" Hotori shouted. "Onee-san! Over here! Miu-oneeeeee-saaan!"

Miu, who had just barely managed to reflect one of Walpurgisnacht's baleful fire beams with an assist from Kokoro, turned in surprise to spot Hotori waving. The Kimiko sisters, who were fighting close by, also turned to watch us approach.

Chinatsu's outfit was apparently a stereotypical sailor suit – not the school uniform, but the original sailor suit that it had been adapted from. She wore blue shorts, the signature white shirt with blue accents, and a white sailor cap also with blue accents. Her soul gem was a peach lozenge-shaped stone attached to a tassel on her cap.

Anzu's outfit was just a dark green skirt and a pale yellow shirt with flared sleeves and dark green cuffs. There was a huge orange bow tying her hair into a ponytail, from which dangled a pair of bells, and her soul gem was a circular green gem nestled in a yellow bow tied at her right hip.

And apparently both of those were their base outfits, for just a few seconds after I registered them, they and nearly everyone else found their outfits powered up by Kazumi's aura as she moved closer.

"H-hotori-chan…!" Miu gasped. "Y-you really are here!"

"Alright!" Hotori declared. "Onee-san is watching me, so I gotta be a hero strong enough to protect her! L-let's do thiiiiis!"

She raised her fist to the sky, emitting a shower of bright yellow stars that spread out to fall upon the battlefield. Miu, Kokoro, and the Kimiko sisters gasped.

"Oh my…!" Miu said. "I'm not sure why, but suddenly I feel more confident that we can win this!"

"Me too!" Kokoro said. "It's like all my fear and uncertainty has been washed away…"

"What is this feeling…?" Chinatsu wondered. "It's amazing…"

"Ai-chan!" Sana called out. "You're here! It's so good to see you again!"

"Welcome, Sana," Ai replied. "Let us defeat this witch together."

"Yes! Let's!" Sana said.

"Rika-chan…!" Hikari gasped. "I… I never expected you to be here…!"

Rika and Ren looked over at her in surprise. Hikari thrust her hood back so that they could see her face.

"Hikari-chan!?" Rika gasped. "You became a magical girl too…?"

"Um, uh… d-do you know her?" Ren asked of Rika.

"Yeah um… w-what's your relationship with that girl?" Tamura asked of Hikari.

"Ah, we're cousins or something," Rika said. "We're not close or anything…"

"Huh, to think you'd run into a cousin in a place like this, Hikari-chan," Chihana said. "It sure is a small world…"

"Kazumi-chan!" Michika shouted.

"Michika-chan!" Kazumi shouted. "I'm finally here!"

The two clones hugged each other, and then Kazumi went on to greet the rest of the Pleiades Saints.

"Ashley-chan, you're finally here!" Yuuri called.

"Kanna-chi, how'd everything go?" Airi asked.

"Not good, but could be worse," Hijiri said.

"Yeah, let's set that aside for now," I said. "We need to focus on one thing at a time."

"Enough with the pointless distractions!" Homura shouted angrily. "Some of us are trying to fight, you know!"

"Come now, Homura-chan, you don't have to be so angry about it," Madoka said. "There are plenty of us here… we don't all need to fight at once with so many people."

"Agreed," Oriko said. "Until now we've been attacking in two alternating waves, but with this fresh influx of people, I think we could split our attacks into three or four waves, giving everyone a bit more time to catch their breath. Also… soon I'll start handing out grief seeds to everyone!"

Several of the girls briefly cheered and applauded, but then we got right down to focusing on the battle itself, with Oriko calling out instructions to everyone.

---

I didn't know if it had been ten minutes, or half an hour, or three hours, or what. Everyone had been fighting non-stop, trying to bring Walpurgisnacht down for good. Her gear was now reduced to half, so some progress had been made, but that was strangely less than the others had managed before everyone had finally gotten together. I kept wondering if Walpurgisnacht had somehow become accustomed to our attack patterns or something, because repeating the same routine over and over seemed to have diminishing returns to a degree.

That said, Tsukihi's magic had been insanely effective, and her effective immunity to Walpurgisnacht's baleful fire had saved several lives already – she must have regenerated from almost nothing at least five times. It was enough to conclude that there was no one part of her body that contained a soul gem. The standard rules didn't apply to her – she truly did not have a soul gem in the sense that other magical girls did.

Ai's energy shield was also quite effective against the baleful fire, even more so than Sana's shield, which could block one hit but was reduced to slag in the process, requiring her to expend magic to summon a new shield. Sumire's ability to dampen the witch's power was also helpful in allowing girls like Kokoro, Ayame, Miu, and Chiharu Karen to more easily weather an attack.

Part of the reason we were struggling may have been because Touka and Ui weren't with us. Mokyu still rode on Iroha's shoulder as usual though. Sure, we had the boosts that Madoka and Kazumi provided, and the unification effect from Mito's magic, as well as Tsukihi's overwhelming power, but I guess that still wasn't quite enough to make up for missing Ui's gathering and Touka's conversion.

By the time we'd been pushed back to the lake in western Hokuyo Ward, all of the grief seeds that Hijiri and Mitama had provided were already used up, pretty much everyone was running on empty, and the gear was still at about half. So far, our attempts to stop her and chain her down had failed, but Seika had put forth a plan to use the lake as a trap.

The only problem was that everyone was out of magic. With a few exceptions, most of the magical girls had collapsed out of sheer exhaustion. Only Tsukihi and Ai showed no signs of exhaustion, though Ai was practically a robot, so that wasn't too surprising. Besides them, Madoka, Kyouko, Yachiyo, Kanagi, Kazumi, Nanaka, Coeurl, Yukika, Kokoro, Mabayu, Mayoi, Oriko, Arisa, Airi, Sasara, Asuka, Hinano, and me were still standing, if only just barely.

"Miss Kumi… how long do you think we'd need to put that plan into action?" Madoka asked. "There's a last resort ability I could use, but it only lasts a short time."

"O-oh, um… p-probably about… um… f-f-five minutes…?" Seika stuttered.

"Alright then, that's perfect!" Madoka exclaimed. "Let's do it, then!"

With that, she flapped her wings and released a shower of pink feathers, and the effect was felt almost immediately. All around us, the girls who had collapsed on the ground began to get to their feet in awe. Even the ones still standing straightened up.

"Ooooh!" Tsukihi said. "That's such an awesome power! You're totally awesome, Miss Kaname!"

"Yeah, that's really amazing!" her sister said. "I feel like I'm completely refreshed!"

Madoka giggled a bit. "U-um, thank you…?"

"T-then I'll make her come over here!" Riko exclaimed.

She jumped to her feet and activated her magic, and Walpurgisnacht sped up and changed course just enough so that she would pass directly over the lake.

"Thank you, Riko-chan! Alright, let's put Miss Kumi's plan into action!" I called. "Everyone who can manipulate ice, come down to the water's edge!"

I repeated the command in English, for those who didn't understand Japanese. Seika herself stepped forward first, followed by Rena, Masuyo Mari, the black feather Yaeko Mana, Kotone, and lastly Gisèle.

"At the current rate she's going, we only have about a minute or two!" I continued. "When she's above the lake, everyone with charm or stun magic, hit her all at the same time! Then everyone with binding magic, drag her down from the sky, and the ice users will freeze the lake to hold her in place!"

Since that included me, I summoned Teddy Mk II and the drones and started charging up the charm beam. Besides me, there were Inui, Haruka, Emily, Sachie, Alexandra, Ria, the Amane twins, Mayu, Sayuki, Lina, Anzu, Ai, Ikumi, Araragi Karen, and Hinata Kaede preparing charm or stun magic. For binding we had Mami, Kyouko, Sana, Chiyoko, Kanoko, Shiori, Mio, Hijiri, and Ulala. Although Akino Kaede, Youko Futaba, Chevonne, and the other Masuyo Mari also had binding magic, we'd excluded them for now because it was plant-based and would be less effective in the middle of a lake. With the help of Mayoi and Shizuku, half of the binding users were already on the far side of the lake. Several other feathers had crossed over as well, to help provide raw force to pull the witch down from the sky once the bindings were in place – Coeurl was leading them. That had all been part of Seika's plan as well.

"Ready… just a little further… now!"

Phase one of the plan went without a hitch. I unleashed my charm beam, along with everyone else's charm and stun magic, and the witch stopped, rotating in place directly above the lake. Then all sorts of chains and ribbons and threads flew out from both sides of the lake, latching onto the witch and dragging her downward. She didn't even struggle, making it comically easy to pull her down from the sky, the feathers providing extra manpower to force her down on both sides. Those with strength boost magic were also helping to pull her down, with Arisa in particular being a huge help.

With a great big splash, Walpurgisnacht entered the lake, submerging to around waist level, and that was when I gave the next signal. The ice users all activated their powers at the same time, and the lake froze over almost instantly. Even as the charm and stun wore off, and the witch began to struggle, the combination of ice and bindings prevented her from escaping.

"Now on to phase two!" I said. "Sayu-sayu, let's get some music!"

Rena perked up at the name, turning to stare at first me, then Sayuki, as if she'd only just noticed that Sayuki was with us.

"W-what!?" Sayuki gasped. "U-um, do you mean just singing, or um… magic provide?"

"The second one, obviously," I said.

"O-okay!" Sayuki said.

She activated her magic and started singing. It was her signature song, Blade-bearing Beauty, but that wasn't the important thing – what was important was that she was sending her magic out to everyone else, like an indirect connect. In particular, she was sending it to the people who'd be throwing everything they had into one final attack.

"We need to use all the time we have left to build up one big attack that will shatter the gear in one go," I said. "That includes using time stop to buy a little extra time. Miss Homura, Remi-chan, I'll have you both contribute to that!"

"Ugh… whatever," Homura muttered.

"Alright, I'll be the one to do that!" Iroha said. "Miss Yachiyo, let's do it together!"

Mokyu made one of its cute sounds, and Iroha gasped.

"Yes, if you can do that, then please do!" she said.

Yachiyo and Iroha joined hands, pooling their magic for a joint attack. Iroha's crossbow grew in size, becoming an arbalest, with one of Yachiyo's halberds as the missile.

Unfortunately, the witch wasn't planning to make things easy for us. Even though Walpurgisnacht herself was unable to move, there was nothing stopping her from spawning a horde of familiars. The shadow magical girls spilled out across the ice, attacking everyone in sight, meaning that it was necessary to form a perimeter to keep them away from Iroha and Yachiyo. The black feathers formed the bulk of this perimeter, but many of the magical girls of Kamihama also joined in. They flowed to both sides of the lake, meaning that Coeurl's team also had their hands full.

"W-what if it's not enough?" Iroha asked.

"Don't worry," Mabayu said. "You've finally opened up the possibility of defeating her. All I need to do now is splice in the best possible outcome."

Remi stepped up, holding hands with Kazumi, and laid her other hand on Iroha's shoulder. In an instant the halberd grew in size, and now Mokyu was standing just below the blade, its ear appendages raised to the sky as if holding the sphere of energy above its head in check. And Remi had collapsed to the ground.

"Is… is that Ui-chan's collection power!?" I gasped.

"Yes, it is!" Iroha said.

"I thought we wouldn't be able to use that," I said. "I never thought Mokyu would be able to use it… though without Touka's conversion, I doubt it'll be as effective."

"I… I think that's the most time stop I can manage… for awhile," Remi gasped.

"Madoka, how much longer?" I asked.

I could see that most of the pink feathers had disappeared, but there were still a few left.

"About… thirty seconds, I'd say?" Madoka says. "Homura-chan, it's your turn!"

The arbalest abruptly grew even larger, no doubt thanks to Homura's time stop, though it looked like Homura herself hadn't moved at all. She must've stopped time, drawn them in, then left them to return to Madoka before her time stop expired.

"Then let's fire in twenty!" I shouted.

But that was when Walpurgisnacht decided to throw a final tantrum, as if in anticipation of her impending end. Eight beams of baleful fire streamed out all at once, all of them aiming behind the front line at those of us preparing the artillery. The ones targeted were me, Madoka, Kazumi, Iroha, Yachiyo, Mokyu, Mabayu, and Sayuki, most of whom weren't in a position to even dodge. But then Tsukihi threw herself in front of Iroha and Yachiyo, in a position to take all three beams at once. Kokoro jumped in front to protect Sayuki, as she happened to be nearby being treated by Sue, and Sumire also deployed her magic to dampen the beam. As for me…

"Nooooooo!"

Before I could even react, Inui screamed, shoving me aside, out of the beam's path. Mabayu didn't seem to even notice that she was one of the targets, and addressed Iroha and Yachiyo directly.

"Fire, now!" she shouted. "We don't have twenty seconds!"

As Iroha and Yachiyo unleashed the halberd at the witch, whizzing so close to Tsukihi that it clipped several feathers from her dress, it crossed paths with the baleful fire beams in mid-flight, without intersecting. Three of the beams struck Tsukihi full-on, almost completely obliterating her body. As the remnants of her body fell to the ground in a pile of ashes, barely a second passed before the sound of shattering soul gems was heard, and the bodies of four more magical girls fell to the ground, their transformations cancelled. Everyone else's costumes reverted back to normal.

"No… nooooooo!" Homura screamed.

The dead were Kazumi, Madoka, Mabayu, Tsukihi, and Inui. Homura fell to the ground to catch Madoka's body, bursting into tears. I collapsed to my knees too, catching Inui in my arms, and Saki ran over to catch Kazumi. There was no-one to catch Mabayu.

I looked around for Moe, intending to ask for her help, but apparently she'd ended up on the other side of the lake as support for the girls who had been fighting over there. Just in case though, I transmitted a message to her.

«We have several shattered soul gems over here, Moe-chan… can you fix them?»

«I'm sorry… just with the time to make a portal and come over, it would probably be too late… though I could try it anyway, if you want.»

«What are the chances?»

«If I'm lucky I might barely be able to make it in time to fix one gem,» Moe replied.

«Then… don't bother. There's no point unless you can fix all of them. I can't make up any justification for picking any one of them over the others.»

«If I may ask… who died?» she asked.

«Kazumi-chan, Madoka, Inui, and a couple others,» I said.

«Oh no, not Kazumi-chan…»

"Not again… not again… why can't I save you!?" Homura wailed.

And then the massive missile struck dead centre on the witch's half gear. Cracks spread out from the point of impact in all directions.

"Guess I missed the action."

Scheherazade stepped up right beside us, gazing at the disabled witch in the process of breathing her last breath. But more surprising than her sudden appearance was that she wasn't alone. With her were Sae and Mikage, holding hands and both looking rather put out, though probably for completely different reasons.

"But to think you could actually bring her down, even after she'd gorged on the remains of Shitori Egumo… that's impressive," she continued.

Even as she spoke, the gear shattered, and the remains of the witch disintegrated. Almost everyone collapsed to the ground in a mixture of relief and exhaustion, or in a few cases, mourning for the deceased. Even I found myself crying as I held Inui's body, though I didn't know if this was sorrow I was feeling, or something else. After all, I knew I'd see her again when we turned back time, but even so…

As Scheherazade leapt clear over the exhausted feathers crowding along the lake shore and ran out onto the ice to retrieve the grief seeds, Mikage let go of Sae's hand and ran up to her sister. Immediately upon being released, Sae slowly backed away from the group, then turned and ran off again. I supposed that Mikage must've somehow dragged her along against her will.

"Onee-chan!" Mikage said. "What on earth is going on? Why didn't you tell Mii about it? Mii could've helped out too! Are you okay, onee-chan?"

"I'm… fine, Mii," Mitama said. "As your onee-chan, I didn't want to see you get hurt. I actually wasn't planning to join in myself, though… but Momoko-chan convinced me…"

Mikage pouted. "I wish onee-chan would have trusted Mii a bit more!" she said.

"Well, like I said, it was… last-minute…" Mitama said. "I couldn't contact you because the cell phone networks were down…"

Around that moment, Scheherazade returned with the witch's grief seeds, glancing back as the ice began to crack from the spring weather.

"And there she goes," she said. "I must thank all of you for taking care of this one for me."

With that, she pressed her hands together, summoning her glowing book.

"Akashic Records, invoke!" she intoned. "I call upon the flower of Hourai who sank the lotus beneath the sea. I summon He Xiangu!"

The ghostly woman summoned wore a traditional Chinese robe in bright pink with yellow highlights. Her hair was blue like the sea, tied into a high ponytail yet hanging to waist length. A lotus flower was stuck into her hair right at the base of the ponytail, and she gripped in one hand an unfamiliar musical instrument that somewhat resembled a pan flute bent into a circle, but with a smoking pipe attached. The woman looked around in surprise for a few moments, but realization dawned on her face as she spotted Scheherazade.

"I understand," she said. "Lady Scheherazade, you have summoned me to heal the wounded of this battlefield, is that correct?"

"I'm glad you catch on fast," Scheherazade said. "Please do."

Xiangu put the pipe to her mouth and began to play a mournful dirge, the notes spreading out and resonating as if passed through an amplifier. It was a soothing sound, but it was more than just that – all around the field, injured girls gasped as their wounds were healed within seconds.

"W-whoa, just from hearing it, I feel a little refreshed!" Iroha said. "Thank you very much, Miss, um…?"

"I am Scheherazade. The spirit I've summoned is that of He Xiangu, of the Eight Immortals. Perhaps some of you have heard of her? She's very famous in some parts of the world."

Iroha shook her head. "I haven't heard of her, no… is she actually immortal?"

"Obviously not, or I wouldn't be able to summon her," Scheherazade said. "Though she did manage to live for a few centuries."

"I… I see…?" Iroha said.

As the song came to an end, Scheherazade snapped her book shut, unsummoning Xiangu. Both the spirit and the book faded out into nothingness.

"Well… in any case, I should be the one thanking you, for taking down the witch that I've been procrastinating on," Scheherazade said. "I can't say it's a total success though… I'm sorry for your losses."

Iroha blinked at the mention of losses and looked around in surprise, spotting the casualties on the ground with their transformations cancelled.

"O-oh no… Madoka-chan…?" she gasped. "And Miss Kazumi… Miss Inui… Miss Aki? And even Miss Tsukihi gave her life to buy us an extra second…"

"Oy, you fool!" Araragi Karen spoke up. "Don't go killing off Tsukihi-chan so easily!"

I glanced at her. Due to Kazumi's death, her outfit has changed and is now essentially a bikini and knee-high boots, both with vertical black and yellow stripes, as well as several black and yellow ribbons trailing off the corners of both the top and bottom. There were two black bouncy attachments on her head, like antennae, which when taken in combination with her colour scheme gives off the impression of a bee. Her hair was also held in a ponytail by a cone in the same colour scheme, with vertical black and yellow stripes.

"H-huh!?" Iroha gasped. "B-but there's nothing left but ashes…"

"Although, now that you mention it, that's a bit strange in and of itself," I mused. "Last time, girls struck by those beams were completely incinerated, leaving no trace."

"They're actually right," Scheherazade said. "That girl is the phoenix, who can rise even from the ashes."

Even as she spoke, the pile of ashes that used to be Tsukihi suddenly shifted, and a moment later, Tsukihi herself sat back up, stretching, the ashes seemingly being absorbed into her body. Her clothes hadn't regenerated this time, but there was no sign of physical injury. She let out a sigh of relief.

"That really was a close one!" she said. "I thought I might actually die this time…"

She turned to grin at Iroha.

"Sorry, did I scare you? It's not like there was time to give a warning, y'know."

Then her expression slipped as she noticed the other casualties.

"Ah… so it wasn't enough, huh? I may have saved you, but I wasn't able to save them… I'm sorry…"

"N-no, it's not your fault, Tsukihi-chan," Iroha said. "You did the best you could… it's a miracle you even managed to survive that…"

"But, say, does anyone have a grief seed?" Tsukihi asked. "It's kinda hard to move, and it seems I don't have enough magic left to restore my clothes…"

Scheherazade leaned down and pressed one of Walpurgisnacht's grief seeds up to Tsukihi's eyes. Normally, a single grief seed would be usable several times even on an almost completely corrupted soul gem, but it looked like Tsukihi was special in that sense too, for the amount of grief that flowed out of her eyes filled the grief seed to the point that it was almost ready to hatch again.

"Ah, thank you, Miss… um…?"

"As expected, you've forgotten me again," Scheherazade said. "I am Scheherazade."

"Huh? What do you mean, again…?" Tsukihi asked.

Ignoring the query, Scheherazade straightened, striding over to where Ren and Rika were collapsed on the ground, and used another grief seed to purify Ren's soul gem.

"H-huh!?" Ren gasped. "W-what? Um… t-thank you…?""

"I need you to destroy this one before it hatches," Scheherazade said.

"Ah… r-right," Ren said.

There was a flash of light, and the grief seed that had purified Tsukihi vanished.

"I'll leave the other two for whoever wants them," Scheherazade said.

She let Ren have the grief seed that just purified her, and Ren immediately turned to use it on Rika. It looked like it still had one more use after that, so she stowed it away somewhere. Then Scheherazade set the two remaining grief seeds from Walpurgisnacht down on a nearby park bench. After a few moments, Yachiyo and Nanaka claimed them.

Tsukihi got to her feet with a sigh, her magical girl outfit reforming.

"Well… it's not like we're done, right?" she said. "We still have to defeat Eve…"

"Still, I haven't heard anything from Nene," I said. "That means either they're all defeated or she's still secure…"

"I checked in with her a minute ago," Hijiri spoke up. "Eve is struggling, but they've managed to keep her in place… although only thanks to two of them unleashing their doppel, and a little help from Scheherazade here."

"Then that means we can take a little time to rest," I said. "Thanks for that, Scheherazade. Alright, everyone! I have one quick thing to say before you leave or take a break! I'll say it both out loud and over telepathy!"

I paused to focus on the idea of doing both at once.

"«As of right now, we've defeated Walpurgisnacht, so the primary goal of this effort has been achieved! Therefore, you're all free to go home and crash! However! There still remains another powerful witch in the east of Kamihama that we'd like to take out. It shouldn't be anywhere near as hard as Walpurgisnacht was, but she's still quite the fearsome opponent. I'd appreciate it if at least a few people would stay behind to fight her! We'll take a break first, but if you want to help to finish her off, please do not leave this park!»"

After pausing for breath, I added in a lower voice, just for the people around me – mainly Crescent Moon Villa, really.

"So basically, once everyone's taken a short break, what we should do is pick up Ui-chan from Crescent Moon Villa, and then head on over to the old prison," I said.

"That's pretty easy to remember," Felicia said. "Alright then, time to have a quick power nap and then go kill Eve!"

"I can't believe we ended up sacrificing our friends right at the very end," Iroha said with a sigh. "Madoka-chan… I'll never be able to speak with her again…"

"Well, look on the bright side," Scheherazade said. "The Magius may be as good as dead, but at least the automatic purification system that they built is still functioning, for now. As proof, like Hijiri Kanna said, both Negishi Nekoha and Azumi Hagumu unleashed their doppels while you were still fighting Walpurgisnacht."

I had no idea who the first of those two is… but well, it was obvious it had to be one of the feathers guarding Eve. The white feather? Or one of the black feathers?

"That's… some small comfort, I suppose," Yachiyo said.

"But what about Ui…?" Iroha wondered.

Before I could compose a response to her question, Kyuubey appeared, hopping up onto a chunk of rubble from one of the buildings that Walpurgisnacht had torn up. Mokyu spotted it and fled, hopping up onto Iroha's shoulders.

"So the rumour of the small Kyuubey was true," Kyuubey said.

"O-oh, it's Kyuubey!?" Iroha gasped. "The normal Kyuubey…"

"Kyuubey… you can enter Kamihama now?" Yachiyo said.

"Tamaki Iroha… Nanami Yachiyo… it has been awhile since we last spoke," Kyuubey says. "As you can see, the barrier keeping me out is no longer active."

"It shouldn't be so surprising," Scheherazade said. "Alina Gray dropped it, didn't she?"

"Oh yeah, I think I did notice that while we were fighting Eve," Iroha said.

"Scheherazade, it has been quite some time," Kyuubey said. "When did we last speak? I believe it was about thirty years ago. Did you find the specific grief seed you were seeking?"

"Not yet," Scheherazade said.

"It is unusual to see you out in the open, however," Kyuubey said.

"Even I show myself every now and then," Scheherazade said with a shrug.

"Um… why are you here, Kyuubey?" Iroha asked.

"I thought I would be able to disable the automatic purification if I could simply enter Kamihama," Kyuubey said. "However, unfortunately it looks like I was mistaken. Though the core of the automatic purification system does seem to be nearby, it is cloaked somehow… possibly phase-shifted, or isolated into a dimensional pocket. It could take quite some time to work out the cloak's nature and wavelength."

Several people gasped at Kyuubey's declaration, including Iroha and the Amane twins.

"As I thought," I said. "You're planning to disable the automatic purification system."

"Naturally," Kyuubey said. "Although it does appear to be possible to collect energy from this doppel phenomenon, the amount of energy does not compare to that of a witch transformation, even accounting for the fact that a single girl can unleash their doppel multiple times. By my calculation, each of you would need to unleash your doppel at least one thousand and thirty times before you could exceed the energy of your witch… and that is assuming the energy remains constant with each unleash. Or, alternatively, the magical girl population would need to increase to about one hundred times its current level, and each one would need to unleash their doppel at least twenty times over their lifetime."

"Well, twenty times in a lifetime is nothing though," I said.

"We won't let you disable it!" Tsukasa proclaimed. "We've come this far… we absolutely won't let it happen!"

"For sure!" Tsukuyo agreed.

"Is there nothing we could do to convince you not to, Kyuubey?" Iroha said.

"I do not anticipate any possibility of this, but if you can present a convincing logical argument, then I may be dissuaded," Kyuubey said.

"To be clear, what are your priorities, Kyuubey?" I asked.

"Gathering sufficient low-entropy energy to ensure the preservation of the universe," Kyuubey said.

"The race that created you… the Edalon, I believe they were called? Is it in your priorities to preserve their existence?"

"Yes," Kyuubey said.

"Which is more important, preserving the universe indefinitely, or preserving the Edalon's existence for the maximum possible extent?" I asked. "Would preserving the universe at the expense of all life within it count as a success?"

"I would say the preservation of the Edalon is higher priority," Kyuubey said. "Your second proposal would be considered a failure."

"Then, if I could show that there is at least a chance that your current system would one day lead to the extinction of the Edalon, would that be a sufficient reason to enter negotiations on a new system? A system based on wraiths and doppels, instead of witches?"

"The Incubators only maintain the system," Kyuubey said. "We have no authority to negotiate on its specifics. However, if you can present evidence of your claims, it can be forwarded to our masters for consideration."

I nodded, and pressed the speak button on my communicator.

"Coeurl! Could you get back here?"

Coeurl, who had collapsed on the ground on the far side of the lake, propped herself up. A moment later, she vanished and reappeared next to me, still in the same position.

"Did you need something?"

"I need you to tell Kyuubey about the future you came from," I said.

"Ah…? I suppose I could try," Coeurl said. "I'm not very good at telling stories even after being in this time period for several years, so it'll probably sound all disjointed and broken, but… I'll do my best."

She picked herself up with a groan and dusted herself off. Kyuubey turned to face her.

"Are you saying that you have travelled back in time?" Kyuubey asked.

"Well, it seems like it," Coeurl said.

"Are you serious?" Iroha said. "It wasn't just Miss Taylor?"

"Well, yeah, I'm serious," Coeurl said. "But I don't know why you're bringing up Miss Taylor…?"

"Coeurl's time travel and mine are completely independent of each other," I said. "It's just a coincidence."

"What's Earth like in your future, Miss Coeurl?" Iroha asked.

"I guess it's just a cloud of dust or something," Coeurl said.

"Huh?" Iroha said.

"Old Earth was destroyed thousands of years in my past," Coeurl said. "No-one alive when I was born even had memories of living there. Though I think there were some who had memories of people who had memories of living there… maybe…?"

"H-how on earth did that happen!?" Iroha gasped.

"It was destroyed by magical girls," Coeurl said. "Magical girls gone wrong… or, perhaps I should say, magical girls gone horribly, horribly right. No-one knows exactly how it happened, but sometime in the past, one magical girl found a way to avoid the witch transformation. From what I've learned since coming back here, she must have been similar to the Coordinators of this era – she found a way to modify the soul gem so that it could never turn into a witch.

"However… the cost for that was her humanity. She erased her capability to derive negative emotions from interactions with other magical girls, resulting in immense magic power, and creating a new race of beings that have often been referred to as the 'magical humans'. The only problem was that they could still experience negative emotions from interactions with the original humans. As a result, they could no longer see humans as people, and instead came to view them as a danger, as interactions with humans could still trigger a witch transformation.

"So they slaughtered and slaughtered, modifying their souls more and more, becoming more and more powerful. Even humanity's advanced weaponry was no match for their magic. According to the fragmentary historical accounts we still had when I was young, the magical humans destroyed the entire solar system within the space of about twelve Earth days. They multiplied like crazy, creating new girls practically out of nothing, and spread out to eradicate all life in the galaxy.

"Blindsided by the sudden destruction of humanity's core world, the Edalon shared some of their technology with us, allowing us to fight back a little, but they arrogantly thought they were safe on their homeworld, and paid the price for it. The magical humans… no, honestly, I can't even call them humans. By that time they'd lost everything that made them human. They were more like a magical virus that spreads without reason. Slowly but surely, they spread relentlessly across the galaxy, and even to neighbouring galaxies, forcing all the known sapient species to retreat over and over and over again.

"By the time I was born, our planet was the last known bastion of humanity and sapience – the magical virus had destroyed the entire local cluster, chewing up the planets into massive rings around their stars, populated by endlessly multiplying creatures that looked almost like human girls yet lacked everything that defines a human. When I got flung into the past, I was the last surviving magical girl on the side of humanity, and we had lost the ability to create new ones – even with the lone Incubator that had somehow arrived from the past, humanity had somehow lost the magical potential they once had, so there was no-one left who could become a magical girl. We had somehow killed our power of imagination, you could say. The Incubator was unable to find magical potential in any of the other surviving species either. By that point, I was the last surviving magical girl. Without me, there's no doubt that all of humanity would've perished, along with all the other sapient species who once resided in the local cluster – the Alf, the Thinkers, the Mediums, the Demideus, the Edalon, the Caish, the Kronons, and probably many more besides. Even if I had been there, I doubt I would've survived much longer."

"I see," Kyuubey said. "It is a very interesting story. However, the word of one individual means little. Is there anyone else who could possibly corroborate your story?"

"Um… not that I know of," Coeurl said. "Unless Kiriha Kosane somehow made it back…"

"Kiriha Kosane?" Kyuubey said. "That is a name I am familiar with, as someone who had the potential to become a magical girl. Fortunately for you, she still lives, though I hear she goes by a different name now. Please wait while I ask her."

"Huh… so she did make it back?" Coeurl said. "That's good to know…"

"That's such an awful story though," Iroha said. "To think there was such a terrible future waiting for us…"

"Well, I don't think you should treat it as an inevitable thing," I said.

"No, that's not what I meant," Iroha said. "I meant the chance of it happening…"

"That must be the kind of thing sensei meant when she told me my power could be used for horrific evil," Mitama said. "If we can ensure that sensei's teachings are passed along from one generation to the next, perhaps that would be enough to prevent it from happening? Although I suppose there could always be a rogue…"

"I think Puella Care is definitely a key component in preventing it," I said. "But like you say, I doubt it's sufficient by itself. Still… if such a rogue had been caught early on, I bet the damage would've been much more limited…"

"Kiriha Kosane has confirmed portions of Coeurl's account," Kyuubey announced. "According to her, the time period is on the order of eight hundred thousand years in the future, which is almost nothing on the scale of universal time. The Incubators will present the account to our masters. Until they come to a conclusion, we will refrain from interfering with the automatic purification system."

The Amane twins let out a sigh of relief as Kyuubey disappeared amidst the rubble.

"At least we have managed to buy some time," Tsukuyo said.

"That's for sure!" Tsukasa said. "Maybe it'll be enough time to actually expand the system and keep Kyuubey out."

"Yes, perhaps we could somehow put up a new barrier," Tsukuyo said.

"So… what do we do about Ui?" Iroha wondered.

"Well… I think it should be safe to restore her now that Walpurgisnacht is defeated," I said. "Though I really can't be certain… you should probably have extra grief seeds on hand, just to be on the safe side… which means waiting a bit and fighting some witches, since we used up all the grief seeds against Walpurgisnacht."

I looked around the field at the exhausted magical girls scattered all about. The Holy Brigade were not far off, and the Pleiades Saints were pretty close by too, both of them mourning their respective losses. I could hear the other Kazusa Michiru clone, who called herself Michika, sobbing about how she'd make up for Kazumi's death, while the others tried to tell her that she didn't have to. Noriko, Mari, and Koharu weren't that far off, either. The Araragi sisters were leaning on each other, and it almost seemed like they'd fallen asleep. A thought occurred to me.

«Hey… Miss Naomi… would you mind scanning the Araragi sisters for me?»

«Eh… well… I'll admit I'm curious too,» Noriko said.

She shifted position, turning to look at them.

«Araragi Karen. Speed, two and a half stars. Stamina, two stars. Offense, four stars. Defense, one and a half stars. Learned powers, one star. Health, seven out of seven hearts. Magia, three and a half out of four clovers. Element, fire. Accelerant, one star. Blast power, four stars. Charge potential, three stars.»

«Well, she at least sounds pretty normal,» I noted.

Although it was a little unusual. In the terms of the Magia Record game, that would translate to two charge disks, no accele disks, and three blast disks.

«Araragi Tsukihi. Speed, one star. Stamina, ten stars. Offense, five stars. Defense, nine stars. Learned powers, one star. Health, thirty out of thirty hearts. Magia, three out of twenty clovers. Element, fire. Accelerant, four stars. Blast power, three stars. Charge potential, seven stars.»

«W-whoa, nine and ten stars!? Like double the normal cap!?»

«Y-yeah, those are quite some incredible stats,» Noriko agreed. «Thirty hearts is pretty much unheard of too… and she's even at full despite all that fighting… and acelerant, blast, and charge add up to almost double the usual…»

In the terms of the Magia Record game, she'd have a total of eleven disks, over twice the usual number.

"By the way, Scheherazade… I'm pretty tired so I'd like to rest a bit first, but I'd also like to have a private chat with you a bit later," I said.

Scheherazade nodded. "I think that can be arranged," she said.

"Thank you very much," I said.

"So, the automatic purification system, huh?" Scheherazade said. "It's an incredible thing your friends have created here, Miss Tamaki. But it's not going to last forever in its current state… right now, it's drawing in impurities from all across the planet."

Iroha blinked. "Huh? W-wait, does that mean that magical girls anywhere can unleash a doppel!? The very goal Touka-chan was aiming for?"

Scheherazade shook her head. "I'm afraid not," she said. "The further from the core, the slower the purification. If it's too slow, they won't be able to unleash a doppel and will turn into a witch instead. If anything, the range in which doppels can be used is probably smaller right now than it was with the barrier, and less consistent to boot. I think at least half of Shinsei and Daito Wards, and most of Minaminagi Ward, are probably unsafe for doppel usage. It might work sometimes, and fail other times, depending on whether there's other people that need purifying elsewhere in the city. It should be safe to unleash a doppel here right now though, since nearly all the magical girls are gathered in one place."

"Where exactly is the core?" Iroha asked.

"You'll have to find that for yourself," Scheherazade said. "It does not appear to be written in my Akashic Records."

"Hmm… so basically, the barrier stabilized the system by keeping out impurities from outside the city," Iroha said. "But we want to expand the system to work planet-wide…"

"And to do that we need lots of energy, right?" Tsukasa said.

"For sure!" Tsukuyo said.

"Maybe the energy Touka gathered can be salvaged," I said. "And I believe it was enough to expand it to the whole planet."

"Well, that's some small comfort," Iroha said.

"Of course, if humanity one day expands to other planets, they won't be protected," I say. "So, really, expanding it to the whole planet isn't enough."

"But isn't that going to be a really long way away?" Iroha asked.

"The United States are still working towards setting up a permanent base on the moon," Yachiyo said. "And there are rumours that Russia and China also have similar projects. So, it might not be as far off as you'd think…"

"Even then, I don't think it's very likely that a magical girl would go to the moon," Iroha said. "Even if there's a moon base, it'll only be qualified astronauts there, right?"

"But a magical girl could be an astronaut," I pointed out. "The probability is low as of right now, since she'd have to survive to adulthood, but it's not zero. But with a planet-wide purification system, the chance of survival goes up, and with it the chance of a magical girl leaving the planet."

"Hmm… I suppose you have a point," Iroha said.

At that point, Iroha noticed that the assembled magical girls were starting to disperse.

"Ah, excuse me a moment!" she said.

She ran over to the girls who were starting to leave and spoke to them briefly. After that, she continued speaking to everyone in turn. Oriko and Hijiri joined her, likely thanking everyone for coming.

"Come to think of it, it was the automatic purification system that drew me here," Scheherazade mused. "But it also looks like it's almost time to face the Witch of Symbols. We've got Aoba Chika and Natsu Ryoko… Miwa Mitsune, Azumi Hagumu, and Miyabi Shigure… Akino Kaede and Minami Rena… Suzuka Sakuya… Himuro Lavi, Alexandra Cruise, and Yume Ulala… Futaba Sana and Yui Tsuruno. There's still about twelve more people…"

I did a quick count of the people she didn't mention. There was the Tokime trio, the rest of Promised Blood, and Momoko, which made nine. There was also Asahi, Himena, San, and Miyuri, which was… thirteen? She must've just been off by one in her count… but she'd also included Sakuya, who shouldn't've been on that list.

"I presume you're including the Tokime Trio and the Promised Blood sisters in that count," I said. "But something doesn't quite add up. By my count you've missed thirteen, not twelve, and I don't think Miss Suzuka is supposed to be on that list? On the other hand, Miuri Asahi is here, but you didn't mention her. And on top of that, what about Togame Momoko…?"

Scheherazade shrugged. "I have no record of Miura Asahi," she said. "But I do not have clairvoyance like you, so I may have simply overlooked her. I do have a record of Miss Suzuka, however. As for Miss Togame… you're right, it appears that she has died, so there's no point putting out a summons in this timeline after all…"

"Huh? Who would you be summoning?"

"You shall learn that when the time is right," Scheherazade said.

The crowd slowly thinned out until only a few of us remained. We still needed to destroy Eve, of course, but by staying behind, these girls had signalled their intention to help with that final battle. That said, I was hoping Ui and Mokyu alone would be enough, so we probably didn't need so many people.

Eventually even Oriko went on her way, together with Kirika and the Asako sisters. By the time the sun was peeking over the horizon, nearly everyone had dispersed. That said, there were still quite a few people lingering, most of them relaxing or even dozing off.

The Holy Brigade had mostly moved on from mourning over Madoka and now were doing their best to console Homura, who refused to let her go – even Kyouko was still here, awkwardly trying to cheer her up. Yuuri had fallen asleep with her head in Airi's lap, and it seemed that Airi had also dozed off, leaning against a tree. Chiyoko and Sakuya had dozed off leaning on each other, as had Rena and Kaede, the Araragi sisters, and the Amane twins, and Mayoi was curled up in Tsukihi's lap. Riko and Karin were curled up on my lap, having cried themselves to sleep over Inui's death.

Konoha and Hazuki were leaning on each other, wide awake, but apparently not wanting to move due to Ayame curled up in their lap. Kanagi and Mitama were sprawled out on the ground next to each other, staring up at the sky, with Mikage snoozing between them. Kako was curled up in Akira's lap, while Meiyui and Nanaka talked in hushed voices to avoid waking her. Sana was curled up in Iroha's lap, Felicia in Yachiyo's, and Tsuruno was leaning on Yachiyo's shoulder. Ai was sitting motionless next to Sana, while Noriko had dozed off with Mari curled up in her lap.

A few people were still active. Hijiri, Maria, Shizuku, Asuka, Sasara, Miu, Hotori, and Yukika, the latter two still wearing their feather robes, were going around and cleaning up damage from the storm, collecting all the rubble in one place and bending any damaged metal park benches back into the right shape. Coeurl, also still wearing her feather robes, was chatting with Scheherazade, who seemed very interested both in the future she came from and the planet she had landed on before ending up on Earth.

I knew that there were still things to be done, but I didn't want to do them. Not right now. I just needed some time to take a break and rest.

Unfortunately, it seemed like Homura was about to throw a wrench into my plans…

---

Magical Girl Corner

Whenever a new magical girl is introduced, I'll include a brief profile of her here. Some details may be redacted, or contain minor spoilers. You have been warned! The numeric ranking values are on a scale of 1 to 10.

Negishi Nekoha (Nene)
根岸猫羽（ねね）

Age: 13
Eye Colour: Blue
Hair Colour: Blonde
Origins: A coastal village on the bay between Mitakihara and Kamihama
Symbol: Orange bunny head
Soul Gem: Circular yellow gemstone at her throat
Element: Null
Weapon: Spinner staff
Powers: Fate weave
Wish: "I don't want to be bound by fate."
Affiliation: Wings of the Magius (rank: White Feather)

Speed: 7
Magical Stamina: 2
Offensive Power: 0
Defensive Power: 1
Initial Power Usability: 1
Learned Powers: 0 (unknown)

---

Doppel Corner

Whenever a new magical girl unleashes her doppel, I'll include a doppel description here. Note that most of these are direct quotes from the Magia Record game rather than being written by me; they are simply reproduced here for interest. I'll mark any original doppels with a dagger symbol (†).

Martina† (Nakasone Noa)

The Doppel of gluttony. Its form is a stuffed doll. The owner of this Doppel will not be deterred from eating whatever she has a fancy for, so the Doppel tries to keep her slim by squirrelling away her would-be meals in its many pockets. However, even that will not deter her, so the Doppel continues to grow and grow as it consumes more and more. If it consumes too much, eventually it will pop like a balloon.

Eckert† (Nakasone Ayanusa)

The Doppel of bravado. Its form is a praying mantis. The owner of this Doppel doesn't want others to know of her fears, so her Doppel leaps forward aggressively to protect her, ruthlessly destroying anything that frightens her. Thus when she becomes afraid of her Doppel, it will ruthlessly commit suicide.

Zanzibar† (Sano Haruyo)

The Doppel of extravagance. Its form is a monkey. The owner of this Doppel is used to being spoiled, so the Doppel does its best to satisfy her by seeking out shiny things. However, the Doppel is only able to locate worthless junk. But even so, it will defend its hoard with a vengeance.

100239† (Kurosawa Chifuru)

The Doppel of innovation. Its form is a robot. The owner of this Doppel is frustrated by the backwards technology of the present day, so the Doppel tries to inspire her to new heights. However, the Doppel can't even tell the difference between a stack and a queue, so its attempts only serve to frustrate her even more.

---

So the ending may not be quite as tragic as in the anime, but it sure comes close. The Magius are somehow alive, just barely, and Ui somehow managed to get through it unscathed, but Momoko and Mifuyu don't make it, among others. At least there are fewer casualties than in the last timeline? That's if you don't count the Magius though.

And now we get to hear what actually happened in Coeurl's apocalyptic future – the setting of Null Magical Girl's second volume. Her list of sapient races who perished includes the three bizarre races described in that work, though I've altered some of the names. It also includes one that might already be familiar to some readers, and two entirely original races.

Once again, the Walpurgis chapter is not the end of a timeline. There are two more chapters scheduled for this timeline. I guess that's technically a spoiler, but I think Madoka's death in this chapter makes it obvious enough that there has to be another timeline – Homura would never accept anything else. There should be a few surprises in store before they finally go back to try again…

The girls who suffered from doppel syndrome have both their profiles and doppels featured, but split between this chapter and the next. So if you're wondering who on earth those girls are, you'll just have to wait until next week… though whether they'll ever become important still remains to be seen. By the way, Nene is yet another on the growing list of magical girls based on a character from another franchise. As for Martina and Eckert, I think there may have been an event in the game that featured one or both of them, but since I haven't seen it, I guess I'm treating it as non-canon for this fic.